Hunter Legacy 5 Hail the Hero (15 page)

“Let’s face that when we have
to,” said Patton.

“Fine. Let me know nearer the time
who’s going, and I’ll send transport to pick them up. I’ve tasked my AI to
build me a new fast courier ship, specifically to break the speed records. So I
should be able to solve the fast movement of key people problem Susan
mentioned.”

“We’ll probably all be interested in
buying them,” said Price. “Keep us in the loop for anything else you
develop as well. I assume that’s why you appropriated the Midgard shipyard? So
you can develop and build your own ships?”

Most of them looked surprised at this, but
Bentley was laughing.

“You didn’t know?” she asked
generally.

All except Price shook their heads.

“I knew he had another station on the
way,” said Harriman. “But not a shipyard.”

“We jump into Midgard in the middle of
the night, take out their fleet, and he leaves me holding the bag while he goes
off to chase some intermittent scanner contact. By morning, he arrives back at
the jump point with a giant shipyard in tow, and claims it was abandoned, and
he couldn’t leave it there as a navigation hazard.”

They all joined in laughing.

“When General Wellington arrives a
little later,” she went on, “he claims it was sitting there all on
its lonesome, and followed him home like a kitten.”

The laughing intensified. I waited for them
to get a grip.

“What’s this about another
station?” asked Hallington.

“The Midgard official he talked
to,” answered Bentley, “was so terrified of him, he literally kicked
the location of Midgard’s Orbital station out of the person who knew. On the
way there, he finds a Mining station, which was moved back to Midgard to be a
base for General Wellington. When the Orbital station was found, his AI took over
the station computer, and tricked most of the people into evacuating. He sent
his Marines in to take out the rest. Then he had it towed to the Azgard jump
point as well.”

They all looked at me.

“Spoils of war,” I said.

Jedburgh snorted, and Harrington looked
worried.

“What?” I said. “You all
keep putting uniforms and rank on me, but I started out as a Privateer. I built
the ships you like by salvaging everything I could after each battle. The
station and the shipyard are simply bigger hulls. Maybe it’s not what career
military do, but I never considered myself to be career military. I see myself
as a temporarily seconded Mercenary Privateer. Once I can shuck these uniforms
for good, I’m the head of Hunter Security, and Hunter Trading, and salvage is
part of my business.”

“Besides,” interjected Annabelle,
“If what we think is coming is, he needs a decent base and support
facilities.”

“Fair enough, I think,” said
Patton. “I wouldn’t tolerate anyone in the ranks doing any such thing, but
this whole situation requires its own rules.”

“Agreed,” said Price and Harriman
together.

“So what do we do in the meantime,
while we wait for you to be able to go home?” asked Bigglesworth.

I chucked.

“First, you decide if you take me
seriously or not.”

They all looked at me seriously enough.

“Well, you all have a piece of the
military puzzle for this end of the spine. It’s up to you to do something about
it. This is the first step. Let me know how you get on, and I’ll try to fit in
with you if I can.”

The Marshall and the three four star
Generals looked at each other, and then nodded to each other.

“I’m afraid you don’t get off so
lightly,” said Bigglesworth with a grin. “You’re task in all this is
to gather together the best of the Mercenary forces under your command. You get
to go home now, but none of us have any doubt that a suddenly created Mercenary
fleet is anything other than a call to create an independent force the sectors
can call on in times of need. So take time for a rest, heal yourself, and then
get to work. Admiral!”

I nodded to them, but wasn’t game to say
anything. What he said did make sense. Annabelle was grinning at me.

“Is there anything else you would like
to add Admiral?” asked Patton.

“Yes, I need a butler to bring me a
pain shot.”

For some reason they all found this
incredibly funny.

After my pain shot, things settled down to
a more general professional discussion. Rank vanished, and all sorts of
subjects of interest were visited.

At one point, Price turned to me.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you, what
did you do to Admiral Dingle?”

There were chuckles around the room, but
everyone looked at me for an answer.

“Nothing I know about. Why do you
ask?”

“Dingle was one of our most promising
officers coming up through the ranks. He was a very effective Cruiser driver
when he made Captain, so we fast tracked him. But when he received his star, he
completely changed. Competence vanished, and was replaced with arrogance and
self-importance. We couldn’t un-give him Warspite once he was appointed, because
he never actually fouled up. But that ship wasn’t half as effective at anything,
once he had command. Granted she was old and out of date, but she was still the
flagship of our fleet, and he was only one of two one stripe Admirals we had
serving.”

“Sounds like he rose to the level of
his incompetence,” I suggested.

“You’d think so, except for his
performance under you has been back up to the standard for which we promoted
him in the first place. I wondered what you did to get it out of him, where the
rest of us failed.”

I paused, thinking.

“My first contact with him was in the
middle of the night, when I told him if he left his ship where it was, it would
be in small pieces before the day was out.” They found this quite funny.
“I had to show him a vid of the station jumping before he accepted it was
possible, and Warspite just about ran me down moving.” The laughter
intensified. “I gather Vonda took a piece out of him not long after, but I
never did find out what she said.”

“That still doesn’t explain the change
in him,” said Patton.

“Vonda wanted to replace him, but I
convinced her he was better off where he was. We didn’t know Repulse was coming
at the time, so we had two objectives. We needed a target the enemy had to take
out first in order to focus them where we wanted them, as well as a station for
them to take as a forward base. I convinced Vonda that Dingle was the right
person for the job of sacrificial lamb, someone who would die gloriously,
unaware of what he really was.”

“You weren’t really thinking of
sacrificing a Battleship were you?” asked Jedburgh.

“Not as such. But at the time, I
couldn’t see any way in which Warspite could survive. As it was, she almost
didn’t, and we provided Midgard with two main targets instead of one. We simply
didn’t have the Point Defense to save her, with her being the only main target.
As it happened, we ended up with much more Point Defense than we’d first
thought, but right then, Warspite had to be the focal point of our defense, and
her survival wasn’t likely.”

The others nodded.

“As far as Dingle is concerned, it
could have been a number of things which shocked him back to competence.”

“List them,” said Price.

“First off, we simply ordered him to
prepare to defend the jump point against the expected fleet, told him what they
would fire at him, and gave him a time of three seconds to train for, to fire
on the first down jump. As far as he knew he was going to be facing the full
fleet alone.”

“Hell,” said Harriman. “That
would have given some flag officers a heart attack.”

“The battle itself could have been the
turning point for him. He wasn’t a happy Admiral after, having his ship almost
destroyed around him. He wasn’t impressed when I asked him if he needed a
tow.” They all laughed. I turned to Price. “I guess the next thing
was, having just about lost his ship in action, you didn’t relieve him of
command. Instead, his ancient, out of date ship, received what he’d probably
been pushing for since taking command, and came out of the yards a completely
new force to be reckoned with.”

“You’re right,” said Price,
“he was a constant pest with requests for Warspite to be upgraded. But he
never presented them with arguments that made any sense. We always assumed it
was his self-importance driving him.”

“So suddenly,” I said, “his
ship is given a new lease on life. On the jump into Azgard, Warspite was the
vanguard, even though we all jumped together. His new missile system was very
effective, and even though the tactics were new, he was fighting a kick-arse
ship now.”

The nods all round showed they agreed with
my assessment.

“It’s hard to know when the change
happened, or why, but that’s what I think led to it.”

“Could have been having a very
competent commander to emulate as well,” said Chet.

“Vonda certainly was an effective
leader,” I replied.

They all smiled.

“I wasn’t meaning General
Wellington,” said Chet.

I looked at him, not understanding what he
was saying. Smiles became laughs.

“Jon,” said Price, “I
probably shouldn’t really say this, but Vonda told me, had she been in
operational command, Avon would have been taken. She’s a very capable General,
which is why I sent her, but the situation needed an Admiral, and we didn’t
have one with the experience, or the stones, to get the job done. Had she
managed to defend Avon, she was adamant the entire attack force would have died
jumping into Azgard. I wasn’t asked to promote you to Vice Admiral, I was told
it was essential she be relieved of the command, because she wasn’t up to the
job, and you were. I couldn’t relieve her then, but as the same rank, she could
defer to you without any problems for the lower ranks, especially since
managing ships is an Admiral’s job, and managing troops is a General’s job. You
probably weren’t aware of it, but from Cobol on, she effectively delegated the
war to you, and was trying to stay un-noticed in case junior officers wondered
why the senior officer wasn’t the one giving all the orders.”

I looked at him for a long moment.

“She’ll make a good Governor,” I
said.

“She will, and she knows that.”

We were interrupted by butler droids
bringing in lunch platters. I was relieved the conversation had been stopped at
that point.

The group broke up after lunch, so we could
all prepare for the party in the afternoon. I trailed Annabelle back to
BigMother, in chameleon mode. The Americans had headed for Guam, docked on the
opposite side of the station.

Angel was happy to spend some time playing
with me, especially as I wasn’t sure when I’d be back next. I made a point of
explaining it to her, and suggesting it was a good time for her to have some
quality sleep.

Precisely at one thirty, a shuttle touched
down on the Flight Deck, and was taken below, where we were waiting for it. Both
Jane and Jeeves boarded with us, the latter with a supply of pain shots for me,
so I wouldn’t have to seek them out. Jane had done some work on Jeeves,
changing his appearance to the Hunter Dress Uniform, without insignia. His
orders were to see to my needs exclusively.

We were transported down to the planet,
landing on the Palace roof. A grand staircase wound down the middle of the
building, emerging into a huge vestibule area, with many rooms leading off it.
We were directed to the main ballroom.

Although not yet two o’clock, we were
announced, in order of rank. There was a receiving line of mainly politicians,
whose names I promptly forgot, with Marshall Bigglesworth on the end. After
shaking my hand, he waved a butler droid forward, and instructed it to take my
party to our designated location. On the way in, I’d not seen this being done
with anyone else. I was about to ask him, but he very slightly shook his head,
so I nodded and followed the butler.

It led us over to the only clump of lounge
chairs in the room. I lowered myself into the central chair, and a medical
pouffe was placed under my leg. Jeeves dropped a ginger ale on the table beside
me. Alison took the chair next to me on one side, and Amanda the other side.
Jane stood behind me, as if to protect my back from any threat.

I told the rest of the group to go mingle,
and after some reluctance, they did. Jeeves gave me a pain shot soon after.
With the edge removed, I let myself sink into the comfortable chair.

People began to seek me out, and the chair
opposite me was kept occupied. I tried to keep conversations general, and avoid
saying anything which someone might later use against me. While I had no
experience of this kind of event, I’d read enough as a kid, to know the
politics going on behind the scenes was likely more important than the event
itself. Politics of any kind was something I was very keen to avoid.

Sometime around three, I had a break in the
conversation flow, which gave me a chance to look around the whole room. A
movement above drew my attention, and I saw a pretty girl standing on the next
level up, watching things unfold below her. She appeared to be about my age.

Our eyes met. She smiled at me, and
suddenly turned and fled.

I wondered what had spooked her.

I looked around, and found both Amanda and
Alison with big grins on their faces. Neither would say anything though.

The afternoon wore on, the conversations
became repetitive, and I felt an intense need for some sleep.

The party wound down at five, and I was
shown to a large suite where I could rest before dinner. I wasn’t sure how many
rooms there were in this suite, but the girls all followed me in, and vanished.
I eased myself down on the bed, moved the scooter over next to me, and promptly
went to sleep.