Hunter Legacy 11: Home Is Where the Hero Is (5 page)

"Surprise!" came from hundreds of
voices as I walked into what I thought was an empty conference and
entertainment room.

I should have known. It was the one place
big enough to take most of the people on board for a social event.

I looked suitably surprised. Because I was.

The twins dragged me in. My mother was
already there, and before I reached her, my father came in after me. The alpha
team were all arranged around her, and my father moved beside her. Lacey placed
a tankard of beer in my hand, and saluted me with a huge grin on his face. The
party obviously was resuming, as food and drink were looking like they'd been
out for a while now.

I stood there, well-wishers coming past in
an endless stream, feeling somewhat stunned and wondering what all the fuss was
about. Eighteen Gaia years was when we did the full party. This was early. But
then, several thoughts came to mind. Only two people here knew anything about Gaia
years, and the rest all celebrated standard years one way or another. And given
what everyone had been through in the last year, a party was exactly what we
all needed.

The tankard in my hand was replaced by
George, and a warm fuzzy feeling was starting to come over me. I didn’t see
Jane enter, only noticing her when she walked up and whispered to Amanda. I
knew something was up when the grin on her face widened, and Aleesha's matched
hers.

The lights flickered, and the volume level
fell as people stopped talking to see why.

Jeeves and three other butlers entered
through the main cargo doors, and the crowd parted to let them through. Between
them were four grav sleds, and on them was a replica of Gunbus. My mouth fell
open, and Aline nudged me to close it.

My eyes sought Jane's, and I mouthed the
word 'cake' with an implied question mark. She nodded, grinning.

The cake ended up in front of me, with an
appropriately large knife sitting beside it. There were nineteen candles, each
one in the shape of one of Gunbus' front guns or turrets. Before I could pick
the knife up, as if choreographed, the entire room burst into happy birthday
and almost deafened me. I stood there stunned, and the room fell silent at the
end of three cheers, waiting for me to say something.

"Thanks."

Silence continued, as if no-one thought
this was enough. I looked around the room, and saw expectation and amusement at
my discomfort.

I frowned, and watched some faces suddenly
show concern.

"Is this a party or a funeral?" I
asked them.

Grins appeared on faces.

"Who wants cake?"

Everyone did. But knife in hand, I couldn’t
cut it. Not Gunbus. I stood there for a moment, until Miriam whispered in my
ear. I took her advice, and cut out a section of the front of the ship, as if
the cargo bay airlock was open. The piece was big enough for six people, and I
took one of them and walked away, not wanting to see the ship carved up.

The cake was delicious.

The party restarted, Jane had music
playing, and part of the room became a dance floor.

For a few minutes sometime later, only Jane
was close to me, and I was pondering the earlier thought.

"Jane?"

"Birthday boy?"

"Huh, stow that. What do you know
about our crew's families?"

"Who they are, but nothing much about
them. Why?"

"Can you make arrangements for
accommodation for them on Five, with my family? I'm getting a strong feeling we
should be evacuating as many as we can here now."

"Not all of them could move on such
short notice."

"Could you organize ships and movers
for those in range who want to come here?"

"Sure. I could move every crew family
in the Aussie sector in a day if need be. They wouldn’t like the experience,
but it could be done."

"Will you talk to Annabelle quietly
and sound her out? If she agrees to it, make the offer to everyone whose family
could be moved here in the time we have, and let them decide. If it's going to
happen, get my father and the Keeper involved to arrange good accommodation for
them, close together so they can support each other."

"Will do. What about the families of
team members you never got to meet?"

"Like who?"

"Anita Vasquez for one, the pilot who
was killed that first day you met the team in space? The records for all
Annabelle's teams show dead team members, Arnold Weaver being the most recent
from the Alpha team itself, and all of them have families as well. A few of the
kids are near an age to enlist, and may eventually join the teams."

"Include them too. But it's up to
Annabelle. She'll need to do the communications to make it happen. Just support
her in whatever she decides to do." I paused, thinking. "If anyone
wants to be close to their people rather than move straight to Gaia, assign
them accommodation on Haven. The ones you said might want to enlist would
probably prefer to be on the station than here, so as soon as they meet BA's
requirements, they could start training. If there's enough of them, maybe form
a junior team members squad, and let BA give them appropriate starting
training. Ask BA."

"Confirmed."

She headed off to speak to Annabelle. I
wasn’t left alone for long.

Sometime around one the next morning, with
Aline nowhere in sight, Miriam led me back to my suite. Angel was asleep in her
cat bed, Nut snuggled up with her. Neither stirred as we went past.

I crashed down on the bed, not quite in
control of myself for once. I could have overridden the alcohol and stayed sober,
but I hadn't. I wasn’t falling down drunk. Or maybe I was. It was hard to be
sure. I was lying on the bed. My eyes closed.

"Oh no you don’t!" said Miriam,
stopping me from nodding off.

The striptease which followed held my
attention.

I didn’t get much sleep that night.
Sometime around four in the morning, I awoke desperate for the bathroom, and
when I came out, I found Aline instead of Miriam. She didn’t let me go back to
sleep immediately.

"GOOD MORNING GAIA!" woke me up
from a very deep sleep, jarring me awake enough for Angel to bat me one with a
paw, and jump away before I rolled on her.

Aline was still dead to the world, so the
wakeup call had only been in my head. Gee, thanks Jane. I dragged my sorry arse
into the bathroom, let more of last night's beer drain away, and contemplated
showering or going back to bed.

"You have meetings," said Jane.

"Who with?"

"Gaia council in half an hour. The
Keeper immediately after. Meeting of everyone is scheduled for one in the
afternoon."

"Sounds like a thrilling day."

"If you say so."

"I don’t."

In spite of myself, I stepped into the
shower. I was already naked, so there was nothing to take off first. As a rule,
I didn’t sleep well naked, but obviously last night hadn't been a normal night.
There hadn't actually been a lot of sleep. I let the water make a decent
attempt at getting me to feel even vaguely human again. When this didn’t work,
I turned a few medical monitor options on, and was quickly feeling like my normal
self again.

"You have emails to deal with as
well."

"Have to wait."

"There's one you better look at."

"Who's it from?"

"Well that’s the interesting thing. I
don’t know."

"Why not?"

"No sender data."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing."

"Odd."

"Your odd is my interesting."

"You're odd."

"Speak for yourself."

"I was."

We both broke down into chuckles. I
reluctantly shut off the water, and toweled off. With briefs and socks on, I
shifted into 'slinky red', and moved into my suite's office. I had a few
minutes to spare.

Jane had tagged the email to the top of the
list for me. I opened it, and threw the vid to the wall.

"Admiral Hunter," said a butler
droid. "You don’t know my employer, but you are well known to us. We
specialize in obtaining data which is otherwise unobtainable, or at the least,
hasn’t yet been procured."

Huh?

Jane walked in at that point, so I paused
the vid.

"Have you ever heard of a butler droid
being employed before?" I asked her.

"No."

"Neither have I."

I started the vid going again.

"A year ago, almost to the day, we
were contacted from Outback Orbital, and asked to provide you with astronomical
data, on this day. Three of the six systems were unknown at the time. One could
not even be safely entered. We designed custom built drone ships for each
system, and recorded the needed information. It is attached."

I froze it again.

"What have we got?"

There was no answer from Jane for over a
minute. She just stood there.

At last she blinked rapidly, and smiled.

"You remember the idea to try and
extrapolate which system the nightmare occurs in from a month's system data,
yet to be collected?"

"This is it?"

"It is. Almost a year for each
system."

"How would anyone know I'd be wanting
that a year ago?"

"The Keeper!" we both said at the
same time.

"How long will it take to convert the
data into something we can view?"

"I don’t know off hand, there's a huge
amount of it. But I'll get started immediately."

I nodded to her, and started the vid going
again.

"Our services have been paid for, and
we hope this data will be useful to you. Please do not try to find us. Not
because we don’t want to be found, but because it would waste your time trying.
Good day Admiral."

The vid ended.

"You're going to be late."

"Then I'll be late."

Jane nodded with a smile, and followed me
as I tooled up, set my suit to hide the guns, and headed out.

As our trolley arrived at the ramp down to
the station, BA moved out. Amanda and Aleesha were waiting for me. They were
both grinning, but didn’t say anything. I took a quick look out the airlock in
case someone was waiting to shoot me, and stepped onto the ramp. Nothing
happened. Jane followed me a step behind, and once in the station proper, the
twins took up a rearguard position.

Sometime I was going to have to talk to
them about this bodyguard thing they still did. It wasn’t appropriate for
Lieutenant Colonels to do bodyguard work. They were supposed to delegate it.
While we walked, I tried various versions of how to tell them in my mind, and
we arrived at the council chambers before I could figure out a strategy which
would actually work.

At the door before us, stood two, well,
bouncers was the only word which seemed appropriate. They weren’t military
because Gaia really didn’t have much of a military outside of Galactica, some
limited ground forces tasked more to disaster relief than warfare, and her
shuttles; and they weren’t police. Private security I guessed.

They made no move to open the door, and
blocked me from doing so.

"Only the Admiral may enter,"
said one of them.

"The Admiral enters with his
aide," I responded.

"Only the Admiral may enter,"
said the other one.

"Fine," I said turning away.
"I have plenty of other things I can be doing right now."

Like going back to bed.

I heard the door opening behind me.

"Admiral?" said the Keeper.
"We're waiting for you."

He turned to the door guards, who sprang to
a semblance of attention on each side of the door.

"Colonel Jane is welcome."

He said it in a tone flag officers used
when dressing down someone who has really screwed up.

I stopped, turned, and started back to the
door, Jane still behind me.

Inside I found a semi-circle shaped desk
with twelve people sitting behind it. In front of it, positioned where no-one
needed to look sideways to see anyone, were two one person desks. The Keeper
moved to the one on the left, and sat. This left me the chair on the right. I
moved to it, but didn’t sit.

"Welcome Admiral, my Lord Duke,"
said the middle aged woman to the left of center.

All except the man on the far right, who
shot a dirty look at the speaker, nodded to me respectfully. I nodded back.

"Please sit," said the same
voice.

I did so, taking in the range of people
represented. The woman who'd addressed me was Australian Aboriginal. The man to
her right was American Indian. There was also a Buddhist Monk, a Hindu Indian
woman, and a Sikh man complete with turban. The other seven had a range of skin
colours, none of which identified the groups they represented. Men and women
were equally represented. Religious views were prominent, but not all the
councilors had a specific religion. I certainly didn’t. And I knew at least one,
obviously far right, rejected all forms of religion. Gaia may have been
colonized by spiritual groups, but that didn’t mean everyone born there
believed as their parents had. I assumed dirty-look on the right was their
representative.

There were no names in front of them. No indication
of who represented whom. And I recognized none of them. No-one made any attempt
to introduce themselves.

"Keeper, you wanted this meeting.
Please begin."

The Keeper rose to his feet, and faced the
center of the desk.

"Councilors, it is time for Gaia to
embrace Prophesy."

"So you've been telling us for the
last standard year," said the man on the right end, somewhat nastily.
"Where's the proof?"

The reaction was mixed. Just over half of
the councilors glared at him, the remainder nodding. The Keeper smiled
pleasantly at all of them. He waved at me.

"Here is your proof. A boy left Gaia a
year ago. He returns to us in a triangle shaped Battleship, with Admiral's
stars on his shoulders. He returns to us as a hero."

"Anyone can dress up. I see a triangle
shaped ship out there. It could be anyone's. It could be anything."

More glares, more nods. But no attempt to
shut him down.

The Keeper waved to a wall, and the image
zoomed in on BigMother. It showed the turrets on top, moved to the front to
show the Flight Deck opening, and underneath. It must have been recorded by a
drone as we approached yesterday.

"What are we seeing Keeper?"
asked the Indian woman.

"The top part of the ship is a
Carrier. It has five squadrons of fighters on board, plus five small capital
ships. Underneath is a Battleship and four Pocket Battleships."

"So?"

The objectionable councilor was not
impressed.

The Keeper waved again. Part of the Bridge
feed from yesterday's missile attack played. It showed me issuing orders from
the center seat. The Keeper stopped it, and left the image showing me looking
back at the rear of the Bridge.

"You will notice the group at the
back," said the Keeper. "Here are four star Admirals and Generals,
who are guests on this man's ship. You will note that while concerned about
what is happening, none of them comment on the orders given. This ship belongs
to Admiral Hunter here."

He paused for effect. He had them all now.

"It is the triangle ship of Prophesy.
It has the dreamers on board."

"The dreamers?"

Objectionable was the only one not
accepting things as they were.

"You all know the basic
prophecy," went on the Keeper. "
When the
three who dream come to Gaia on the red arrow, then must the preparations for Darkness
begin."

The room was silent.

The Keeper waved again, and the image
showed the twins looking back at me from the front of the Bridge.

"The twins you see here are the other
two dreamers. Hunter here we have known about since he was very young. First
and second signs. A Hunter named Jonathon, and being a dreamer. The third sign
was him failing to return after we granted him permission to leave Gaia before
his eighteenth year. The fourth sign was his becoming a British Duke. The fifth
was him returning here after one standard year, on the red arrow, with the
other two dreamers."

He looked around the twelve. They were all
looking somber now.

"Prophesy will not be denied!" he
yelled at them.

They all flinched.

"Prove it," said objectionable
again. "So the signs have come true. I still see nothing to prove anything
abnormal is about to happen."

"You will," I said quietly.

He glared at me, and the others shifted
their gaze to me.

"It's been a long year," I went
on. "I've travelled the length of Human space, all the way into the Death
system where Prometheus was lost. I've been to the future and seen what becomes
of many planets."

"Bull, shit!"

I gave him my predator smile, and he
visibly wilted.

"You will see all the evidence this
afternoon, aboard my ship. You will also meet with Military representatives of
the Australian, American, British, Sci-Fi, and Canadian sectors. Until
yesterday, they didn’t know Gaia existed. This afternoon, all the pieces will
finally be in place, and we will all see how Prophesy has brought us all to
now."

"I still say bullshit, but I'll be
there."

"Yes," I said coldly. "You
will. All of you will."

"We don’t take orders from you."

"Not yet," said the Keeper.
"But you will."

"All we see are stars," said one
of the other councilors, until now silent. "Why should we trust him to
give orders to even what paramilitary forces we have, let alone us?"

The Keeper looked at me.

"Admiral, will you please show them
your dress uniform."

I sighed, but shifted my suit.

There were shocked exclamations from half
the councilors, but there were also several grins.

"Does anyone recognize the top two
ribbons on this man's chest?" asked the Keeper.

The American Indian smiled.

"Is that the Medal of Honour?" he
asked.

"It is," replied the Keeper.

"And the Victoria Cross," said
the Aborigine.

"Yes."

"And the others?" asked far left.

"Gallantry awards from five different
Space Forces."

They took this in silently, and I shifted
back to 'slinky red'.

"The Admiral is modest," said
someone on the left side. "What do you need from us?"

I shot a glance at the Keeper, and he
motioned me to answer.

"Not a lot, but each one is a
biggie."

"How big?" asked someone from the
right side.

"Galactica. She will be leaving with
me in three days' time to be refitted along with her two sister ships."

"You salvaged the other two?"

"Yes. All three have a part to play in
what is coming."

"What else?" asked the American
Indian man.

"You will need to release Captain
Hunter to stay with his ship. He will need retraining while his ship is being refitted."

I paused, but saw no opposition, so I went
on.

"Gaia is what she was always meant to
be. The last refuge of the Human race. You need to prepare for refugees."

"Not everyone is going to agree to
that," muttered objectionable.

"It isn’t an option," stated the
Keeper. "The higher powers built this system for the human race, not just
for those few who colonized it when it was discovered."

"We can argue that until the cows come
home. Many of my people will not accept our paradise being overrun by anyone,
refugees or otherwise."

"Presumably," I said, "those
are the ones who fired missiles at my ship when I arrived, and took a shot at
me yesterday?"

"Those would be the ones, yes."

There were several looks of horror on faces
now, which I found encouraging. It had never occurred to me that the spiritual
society I came from would reject refugees. Not even that some of them would. If
I’d needed something to sober me up, this would have done it. Alas, even
spiritual communities have selfish people who won't consider the greater good.

I looked objectionable in the eyes.

"You will please pass onto them the
following. They will cease any activity against Prophesy. As of now, they are
forgiven for the previous attacks. Any future attack will be met with force.
The penalty at the least will be expulsion from Gaia. We will identify anyone
taking action against Prophesy, and we will deal with them. Make this clear
please. My crew are professionals. The fighter squadrons are elite. The Marines
are the most deadly you will ever come across. You do NOT want to mess with us.
We will shoot first, and forgive after."

Objectionable flinched. I went on.

"Make no mistake. I may be only
nineteen standard years old, but I head the most heavily armed mercenary unit
ever. We crushed all pirate activity along the spine. We will be there when the
Darkness arrives. Anyone who messes with Prophesy, messes with me. I am
spiritual, but it's been a long hard year, and I've had to learn how to merge
spiritual and warrior together. Don’t try me."

"Warrior of God," said one of the
men who hadn't said anything at all so far. "Keeper, you didn’t tell us
this."

The Keeper grinned.

"Would you have believed it?"

"I guess not."

"Do you believe now?"

The man looked at me.

"Are you THE warrior of God, foretold
in other prophecies?"

My eyes sought his, and he shivered.

"Not as far as I know," I said.
"I don’t use the G word anyway. But I am a warrior, and I remain spiritual.
And people have been following me for a while now."

"What else do you require of us?"
asked the Aboriginal woman.

I told them.