Angel Flight

The other Cowboys stopped examining his hands to look around their ready room.    All but two hatches opened into the personal sleeping quarters pilots enjoyed onboard carriers, while everything a squadron needed to be ready to fly filled the room itself.  A small wet bar on one wall gave them access to any drink they wanted, as long as it had no alcohol.  A theater they usually used for playing movies, complete with amazingly comfortably recliners, filled most of the room, while the table they sat around was officially a map of the carrier deck, showing the location and readiness of the hundred-some fighters currently embarked on her.

It made a real nice poker table for a half dozen pilots who hadn't seen each other since the Alpha Centauri Campaign.  Jack, Jessie, and Ken had met down in Texas after volunteering to fight the Shang, quickly becoming fast friends, and he could read them like a book.  Swan, Cat, and Snake had joined the Cowboys during the Alpha Centauri Campaign, to fill out losses in the original Cowboy Squadron, which he supposed was why he thought of them by their callsigns.  But he'd learned to read them too, and he saw contentment in all of his people's faces.  They were happy to be back together too.

Even if it meant taking the long trip out to Epsilon Reticuli.  Jack suppressed a scowl at that thought, wondering again why the Alliance was gathering so many warships so far from the heart of the fighting.  Oh, there were some good Chinese colonies to hit out here, but he couldn't think that any of them rated the entire Third Fleet to take down.  But Western Alliance leadership wanted to show the Chinese and their Shang allies that they were still in The War to win all the marbles.  Jack knew Admiral Aneerin had tried to talk them out of it, but they were adamant.  Which was where Jack and his little half-squadron of Cowboys came in.  Aneerin wanted someone he trusted on the spot if everything hit the fan, and if that was the excuse it took to get the band back together Jack would smile and run with it.

Which he did as he began to shoot the cards out to his pilots' waiting hands, angled so no one could read them, even him.  The Cowboys gathered up their cards with supple fingers careful to keep the faces away from their fellow players.  Eyes widened, eyebrows raised or lowered, and Jack smiled as he dropped the deck and pulled his own cards up.  He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, putting on a show of thinking about his cards.  He could work with the two jacks.  Maybe.  Faking his people into thinking he either had nothing or everything was all just part of the game.

"Are you sure you didn't load them?" Cat asked in disgust and Jack gave her a smile that could have melted butter.

"How could I possibly have done something like that with you watching my every move?" he asked her with practiced innocence.

"Cards could," Cat declared and aimed a finger at Jessie.

Jessie shrugged in response to her use of his old callsign and the cards in his hand seemed to teleport into his other hand after a mere wiggle of fingers.

"Which is why you leave it to models of honesty like me," Jack said piously, picked up one of his few remaining bottle caps, and tossed it into the center of the table.  The other Cowboys rolled their eyes at him, but he examined his hand as if he couldn't see them.  It was all part of the game after all.

Cat was fingering her large pile of bottle caps in deep thought when an alarm filled Cowboy County with blaring dissonance designed to wake the dead.  Jack froze for a second in complete and utter surprise.  The alarm had only one meaning, but it was impossible.  Nobody in their right minds would actually attack a fleet as large as this one.  Then the poker table exploded into motion as all six Cowboys came to their feet in unison.

Cybernetic intelligences flickered into existence next to each Cowboy's locker, and Jack aimed a quick glance at the blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman standing next to his.  Betty's Scandinavian features would have fit in perfectly with all the cousins and other girls he'd grown up with in northern Minnesota.  To most people she looked as real and solid as anyone else, but the improved eyesight that came with his very rare reaction to the Peloran Treatments watched small particles of air drifting through her body.  That, and the sharp edges of her body were a dead giveaway as to the nature of her holoform.  Once again, he wondered if the imperfections of the holoform were a limitation of the technology, or a clue the cybers left on purpose for their partners.