The Family Affair (Jack of Harts Short Story 5)

By Medron Pryde

In 2205, we learned the answer to one of the oldest questions of all time. Are we alone? They brought medicines with them that nearly wiped out diseases, and extended the human lifespan into the centuries. They helped us study advanced technologies, and expand our colonies hundreds of lightyears from Earth. It was a golden age that many thought would never end.

Jack grew up in that world at peace, his only interests, partying and girls. But then a sneak attack killed millions of Americans, and his family. He signed up with the Marines to get some payback against the alien scum who’d started it all.

Now Captain Jack Hart of the Republic of Texas Marine Corps has returned to Alpha Centauri after a long and painful mission that left him bruised, broken, and nearly beaten. His new mission is to sit back, relax, and spend a few days healing up so he can go back to kicking alien asses back to the other side of the galaxy.

Jack is happy with the healing and relaxing parts, but he cannot simply sit back. What’s left of his family is on Alpha Centauri, and he has to get back together with them. No harm can come from a little family reunion. Right?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Medron Pryde
• Release date: Nov 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005907525

Medron Pryde

Hello, my name is Medron Pryde, and I am the creator of Jack of Harts.Jack of Harts is a place I hope you like. It’s a place where we did things right, where we built a world we would be happy for our children to grow up in. It’s not perfect. There is conflict. But by and large, we made the hard decisions, and we did what needed doing. We made a good world. I know today that stories tend to go much more dark than that, dystopian futures where we have destroyed our world or enslaved our populations. Places where even the Good Guys are more dirty and hairy than they are clean-shaven and happy. Jack of Harts is not like that. It’s not a world where somebody takes a step forward to fix something and gets knocked two steps back. I don’t like those worlds. I don’t want to spend a lot of time imagining them.Jack of Harts is based in many ways on what I grew up wanting. I was raised in a Christian home, told to do onto others as you’d have them do onto you. I watched Bonanza, where the Cartwrights helped anybody who came along needing it. On Superman, I watched the Big Blue Boy Scout (even if he was in black and white) fighting the Bad Guys each week for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. On Quantum Leap, a man lost in time always found a way to make the world he dropped into each week a little bit better. On Star Trek, a bunch of people I liked traveled through the stars to go places that no man had been to before...because it was there. In Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and Star Wars, the plucky outnumbered heroes came back swinging with a smile, a joke, and a hearty laugh, and they never gave up hope that they could find or build a better world to live in. These are the stories I grew up with. These are what I enjoy, and these live on in my optimism.In Jack of Harts, I try to capture that. The characters of Jack, Charles, and Aneerin, just to name a few, are all people who lived in a world before The War came. When that happened, they aren’t the people who crossed the border to hide from the draft, the people who gave up hope and found a bottle or a needle to hide behind. These are the people who stood up, walked into a recruiting office, and volunteered to defend their ways of life. They may cover it up by saying they’re just in it for the money, or because that person over there just needed taking care of. But don’t let that fool you. They are the best of us, a reflection of the true Big Damn Heroes who grab a rifle, a pistol, and a bulletproof vest (or maybe a fireproof suit) to protect our freedoms and our lives everyday.Jack of Harts is a place where I like to think these people would like what they see. It’s a place I enjoy going to when I write, with people I’d like to share a beer with. I’ll keep it that way. I hope it’s a place you’ll enjoy reading, and I hope you come back each day or maybe each week to read some more.So have a good one, and I hope to see you again.Medron Pryde

Book preview

The crosshairs flashed on his target. He pulled the trigger.

The solid slug blew clear through his target and deep into the stairs behind it. Bits of warbot sprayed all over the stairwell and stone splintered behind it.

Good shot, Jon said into the silence that followed.

Thanks, Jack said and moved to another firing position, keeping his eyes on the shattered drones all around them. And the unmoving warbot now lying against the bottom of the stairs. Having fun?

Absolutely! Jon said as they waited for the next attack. "Haven’t had this much fun since... well... since I was born."

Good to know, Jack said and licked his lips. He’d seen warbots that looked just like that wandering around Juneau back in the day. Though Juneau hadn’t called them warbots. They’d had a much softer name for them. Something about border defense and customs if he remembered correctly. They didn’t have very intelligent AIs, but there was one thing he clearly remembered about them.

They always traveled in groups.

Jack let out a long breath. The warning in the back of his mind was still screaming. He shook his head. Because all of this so far has just been the warm-up act. The real assault is coming.

They didn’t have long to wait. It started with the hum of more flying drones. Then came the sound of metal feet echoing down the stairs. Too many. Far, far too many.

By

Medron Pryde

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Books

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Forge of War

Angel Flight

Angel Strike

Angel War

Wolfenheim Rising

Wolfenheim Emergent

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Short Stories

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The Martian Affair

The Audacious Affair

The Family Affair

The Thunderbird Affair

The Gemini Affair

The Family Affair

A Jack of Harts Short Story By

MEDRON PRYDE

Copyright © 2020 by Medron Pryde

Smashwords Edition

Cover background designed by Stephen Huda under contract

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, November 2020

http://jackofharts.com

http://www.facebook.com/jackofhartsonline

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this story to everyone who has served in the Armed Forces. It is thanks to all of you that we are here now, to enjoy this form of entertainment in the safety of our homes. I would especially like to thank every Marine aviator of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 112, called the Wolfpack in World War II and the Cowboys in recent decades. The Cowboys in this story are named in your honor.

I would also like to thank everybody who has helped me write this story, from those who brainstormed with me, proofread it for me, edited it, created art to bring it to life, or simply declined to roll your eyes when I nattered on about this story I was writing. Whether family or friend, whether I have met you in person or only over the Internet, your help and support is greatly appreciated.

The Family Affair

The dream was there, just like every night. The beach. The bonfire. The party with all the kids he’d grown up with in Northern Minnesota. Even his mom and dad, this time. The glorious sunset and sunrise on a lake in summertime. The songs and the dancing. Julie and Alex and him playing about broken hearts and not moving on. It was paradise, surrounded by the best family and friends a boy could ask for. It had been perfect.

But they’d left. They’d wanted to be music stars more than anything, and he’d just wanted to remain in Northern Minnesota. So he’d let them go and they’d become Taylor and Jennifer, worlds-famous music stars. In a world full of mistakes, that was the big one. The one that mattered. The one he always denied he would take back if he had a chance. Even to himself often enough. But he’d never forgiven himself for making it. Not in the back of his mind. They always waited for him in his dreams.

And today they’d sung about losing the best thing they’d ever had. Them. Now it was time to wake up without them again. It would hurt. It would hurt so much. He didn’t have to. He could stay asleep and be with them forever. Here in the dream, he would never have to leave them again. He could be right back where everything was supposed to be. Where they’d made the right choices. Where they were family. Where he didn’t have to get over doing it all wrong. But that was the easy way out.

He looked towards Julie and Alex and they met his gaze with encouraging smiles. It was time. Time to find the real thems out in the real world and finally tell them exactly what he wanted. No more backpedaling. No more face saving. No more joking and beating around the bush. No more running. It was time to do the one thing in all the worlds that he was truly and completely scared of. He had to face them and tell them what he really wanted.

The Julie and Alex of his dreams smiled and waved as rainbow light played over his paradise. He waved back at them and wondered if this was the last time he would dream about them. That almost stopped him. The thought of never seeing them again almost made him go back. But he’d gone too far to go back now. The rainbow engulfed him and his waking mind left them behind.

Jack awoke to a sense of doom ringing between his temples and a ravening hunger filling his belly. Crash landings sucked. Getting shot sucked. High-gee maneuvers with cracked bones, healing muscles, and aching ligaments sucked. Being saved by two girls who had no business risking themselves in his life sucked. His life over the last few days had become the one unending succession of suck his drill instructor had promised him his life would be after he volunteered to help kick the Shang’s alien asses to the other side of the galaxy.

He pulled in an experimental breath. It hurt to breathe. He blinked his eyes open and it hurt to see. The room swam around him. It hurt to be. He groaned and rolled over to see if there was food and found out that, yes, it also hurt to move. The world swam around him and he placed both hands on the bed to hold it in place.

A steaming bento box appeared in front of him and his stomach growled so loud he