Free Forge of War (Jack of Harts) by Medron Pryde

disagree with me?”
    Jack pursed his lips and glanced at Betty.  She nodded towards Charles’s image.  He was really just one of the new recruits, no seniority except for test scores and a rich family over the rest of them.  And now he was giving them the chance to accept or challenge him.  It wasn’t the smartest thing to do in a lot of ways, but it fit him.  Jack nodded at Betty.  “Not from this peanuts gallery, Chief,” he said with a wry smile.
    The other Cowboys echoed his statement and Jack relaxed in his seat, smiling at Betty.  She gave him an approving look.  It seemed Woodchuck had a new call sign.
    “Ok, men,” Charles said, sounding like the heir of a wealthy family, and the Chief of fighting men.  “Let’s go in tight, let’s put our best foot forward, and let’s make certain they don’t regret inviting us over to visit.”
    “Oorah,” the Cowboys answered.

Hello, my name is Jack.  The Shang were a real hard enemy to fight.  Smart enemies.  Cunning.  They weren’t ones for pointless gestures of defiance.  They were real hard to kill for good.  They fought until they couldn’t win, and then they retreated to fight another day.  Sometimes we had ships to return to.  Sometimes we didn’t.  Thank God we had the Guardian Light .
     
     

The Guardian Light
     
    Wreckage floated in the distance, pieces of Fort Wichita making up most of it, along with the American ships defending the fort.  Several Shang ships drifted as well, dead in space, accompanied by three Peloran destroyers nearly blown in half during the short battle.  Every remaining ship sported massive wounds in their flanks or noses, or sometimes their rears, and at least some of the wreckage belonged to these ships.  The Peloran squadron was already sucking in some of the wreckage on tractor beams.  He’d read that they used scrap as spare materials for their repairs but had never seen the practice before.  He noted with interest that they were only sucking in Peloran and Shang scrap.
    “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” Jack said in an impressed voice.
    “Waste not, want not,” Betty answered.  “Old battlefields are great sources of already refined metals.  There are still some Albion and Ennead battlefields left that we…well…the Peloran visit when they need to perform work.”
    “We?  The Peloran?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow at her small hologram on the console.
    Betty shrugged, her yellow sundress shifting with the motion.  “My family I guess.”  She sighed and chewed on her lower lip.  “I remember them all you know.  So sometimes I think…but then…”  She trailed off and shrugged again.  “But I’m not really Peloran am I?”
    Jack relaxed back in his seat and smiled at her.  “So if you aren’t Peloran, what are you?”
    Betty frowned, deep in thought for a much longer time than usual, an eternity of computer time if she was really thinking about just that.  Finally she shook her head.  “I don’t know.”  She gave Jack an appraising eye.  “We’ve all been thinking about that, you know.  We aren’t really part of a new family here.  There is a new Terran family here, but we are still part of our own families, but we aren’t really Peloran either.  It’s hard to explain.”
    Jack chuckled.  “I think you explained real well.  You’ve grown up away from home and you don’t know if you would fit back there now.”
    Betty’s form blinked and she cocked her head to the side.  “That could explain it.  So…what do you think?”
    Jack shook his head.  “Don’t ask me.  I’m still trying to figure out where I belong now that…well…this,” he said with a wave of his hand towards a large chunk of Shang debris drifting by.
    “Yes,” Betty whispered.  “I’m sorry.”
    “It’s not your fault.”
    “Maybe,” she whispered.  “But sometimes I wonder if the Shang would have come if we hadn’t.  We think about that too,