Hunter Legacy 5 Hail the Hero (27 page)

We missed breakfast. Partly because I slept
through it, but even when I did wake, I found Aline had started without me.
It’s very distracting to wake and find a gorgeous naked woman on top of you. It
was just as well I hadn’t needed breakfast. At best, by the time we were out of
the shower and presentable, it would have been brunch.

Alison gave me the sort of look which needs
no interpretation. She knew exactly where I’d been and what I’d been up to, and
obviously wished it had been with her. I wondered if we had a problem
developing.

We ignored the time as if it was nine,
instead of eleven.

By twelve, I wished I’d stayed in bed.
Treaties were written in the language of gobbledygook, and gobbledygook
required an interpreter. I sent the lot off to David Tollin in an encrypted
email, asking him to find someone who could brief me in words with less than
six letters in them, with all the ifs, buts, and hitherto aforementioned
whereas removed.

Lunch started to turn into a goodbye party
for Slice and Eric, until Slice invited us to his home for dinner. As much as I
wanted to speed on past, I recognized the need for some diplomacy, since he was
in effect, a head of planet. Besides, I was curious.

Everyone was on the Bridge for the jump
into the Apricot system. It was uneventful, just like the previous ones. Before
266 could get out of range, I opened a channel, and re-routed them to Apricot,
telling them to dock with the Orbital station.

I was about to rise to move into my Ready
Room again, when Walter spoke.

“John, why Apricot?”

Slice sighed, and I laughed. Everyone
looked at me.

“What?” I said. “I bet he
gets asked that question all the time, and is sick of answering it.”

Slice nodded.

“It goes back to my rookie fighter
year,” he said. “I was always eating apricot desserts at meals, or
asking for them when they weren’t there. It’s been my favourite fruit since I
was a kid. Pretty soon the mess staff made sure they were on hand for me. Well
I had a mission where things went wrong almost from the moment we launched, and
instead of getting drunk afterwards, I binged on apricot slices.” We all
laughed. “So next thing I’m in a rookie call sign ceremony and dubbed with
the name. When I left the service, I was casting around for a company name, and
put what I intended to do, with the fruit I love, and the Apricot Mapping
Service was born.”

“How did you end up with your own
planet?” I asked.

“It’s classified I’m afraid. Let’s
just say, I did the sector a big service, part of which was nearly doubling the
number of systems in the sector through my mapping work, and Apricot system,
called something pedestrian beforehand, was awarded to me in lieu of a credit
payment, much like your systems were awarded to you.” He waved in my
direction and I nodded. “The system had a habitable planet, but for some
reason I’ve never been able to find out, it was never claimed. Mind you, the
habitable area is very small. At most, the planet can only support about fifty
thousand people. Not without extensive terraforming of the especially expensive
kind. I guess no one wanted to spend the credits. It’s a much better base than
an Orbital station ever would be. Anyway, I’ll give you the tour when we
arrive.”

On that note, everyone went about their own
business. But I buttonholed Slice, and we spent the next few hours talking
about how his system was run. I was looking for any tips he could offer. His
model wasn’t going to work for me, as it was corporate, but the structure might
be useful in general terms. While the system was his, it was leased and fully
administered by his corporation, of which he was CEO. His decisions though,
were all subject to board oversight. His rationale was it was necessary to
avoid being a dictator. Becoming a Duchy or some other entity had never been a
possibility, as his system still paid tax to the Sci-Fi sector. I wasn’t really
sure what the distinction was, but I didn’t press him on it.

Before leaving, he asked me something I
hadn’t expected.

“Can the AMS rent or buy some space on
your new station in Nexus?”

“Sure. Why would you want to
though?”

“I’ll be sending Eric to represent us
in the Australian sector. We make a pass through there every two or three years,
which isn’t often enough. The Wolf planetoid for one, needs a lot more
monitoring than it gets.”

“Why do you keep remapping the same
space all the time?”

“The detectors we use to find jump
points are always being refined. It’s my main area of R&D. As the tech
advances, we need to re-cover known space in case a jump point has been missed.
There are a lot of systems out there along the spine which we can’t reach yet,
and it’s fair to assume it’s only because we haven’t found the jump points. We
don’t find them very often, but when we do, the sector tends to be very
grateful about it.”

“Fair enough. Send me the specs of
what you need, and I’ll have a suitable space made up for you. There will be
one condition though.”

“Which is?”

“You’ve never received permission from
Outback to survey that system, have you?”

“No, it’s the only system we’re
denied. Isolationist policy I understand. Didn’t you say you’re from
there?”

“Yes. And yes, the isolationist policy
is the reason. But it’s not only you. Mining companies and prospectors are also
denied access to the system. The last thing Outback wants is for someone to
find anything at all in the system which attracts people there. It was chosen
because there was nothing there anyone else wanted at the time, and because
it’s at the end of the spine with no reason for people to pass through. And
that’s the way we want it to stay.”

“I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve
kept on asking for permission each time I sent someone to the Australian
sector, but it’s always been denied, so it’s no shock you’ll be continuing it.
Will Outback be joining your mini-sector, do you think?”

“I won’t know before anyone else does
I suspect. It has to be approved by the Australian sector first, and who knows
how long it’ll take for a decision.”

“Oh, one last thing, you’d all better
come with me on Apricot One to the station, and we can take a shuttle down from
there. The shuttle can bring you back here after dinner. The station isn’t big
enough to dock a ship this big.”

“Fine with me.”

One of those random thoughts popped in,
which I often wondered if they were mine, or from someone else, like Kali. It
didn’t feel like one of mine. But it also wasn’t Kali’s voice.

“By the way,” I said. “Can
your station accommodate everyone on the planet?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“The whole two isolationist cultures
coming up with the same dire prediction thing. If the darkness or Ragnarok is
really coming, you’re going to want to escape it if it comes here. That either
means enough ships, or a station you can move everyone to, and bring with
you.”

“You think it’ll come to that?”

“I don’t know. But as well as
highlighting the potential problem, we also proved a station can be moved.
Seems to me to be a very unsubtle hint from the cosmos.”

I paused and he waited for me.

“Put it this way,” I went on,
“if one day you were told to evacuate, as fast as you possibly can, would
you want to be forced to leave anyone behind?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“I’m just pointing it out. We have
time to prepare, maybe a lot of time, maybe not. But we were given this warning
for a reason, and I for one, am going to make sure my assets can move in a
hurry if they have to.”

“Move? Where to?”

“It depends on where the threat comes
from. Frankly, your people are the most likely to encounter the problem first.
You’re the ones out there exploring. Where we move, is to the first choke point
we can find. Midnight is one. There are others, but not many. You’d know them
better than I would. If the threat comes up the spine, everyone retreats to
behind Midnight, and we stand there. If the threat comes down the spine from an
Australian system, we do the same the other way, taking refuge in Cobol and
trying to hold in Midnight. If it starts somewhere in the middle and heads both
ways, then we retreat both directions. The key thing is, if we need to move, we’re
able to. And the choke point systems are the logical places to retreat behind,
so we can make a stand where they can’t outflank us.”

“I hope it never comes to that. But
you make a good case. I’ll upgrade my station so it can accommodate all my
people if it has to, and can move as fast as I can make it so. I saw the way
yours moves, so I know how to do it.”

“Don’t forget the means to evacuate from
the planet to the station in a hurry.”

“I’m not one for doomsday theories,
but, we’ve had a wakeup call, haven’t we.”

“I’d say so.”

“In that case, I think we need a
party.”

We grinned at each other, and he left my
Ready Room.

By five thirty, we were in a shuttle
heading down planet. Everyone came along, although Eric was the last aboard,
since he’d needed to dock his Camel first, and had further to go to the shuttle
dock than we did.

The air tour over the planet’s sites took
an hour, and I marveled at how much of the planet actually was coloured an
intense apricot. It registered that for all my traveling, I’d not actually
spent any real time on planets. If I had the chance, it might be good to try
and play tourist the next time I was moving around a lot.

We landed on the roof of an imposing
building, which turned out to be Slice’s home.

We met his wife, children, and
grandchildren; and Eric’s wife and kids as well. Plus all the members of his
board, and other prominent locals.

It did indeed turn into a big party, the
sort which bubbles along so nicely, no-one wants to leave.

But leave we had to, and the shuttle took
us back to BigMother around one in the morning.

Eric made a point of letting me know he’d
be about two weeks behind us, having some much needed leave time, before he
began his sweep of the Australian sector. He told me he’d check in when he
arrived, and I let him know there would likely be a few things I wanted him to
look out for as well. His purpose was ideal cover for completing the aborted
mission I’d started out with - finding the pirate base which we still suspected
was in the sector. I’d never finished the job, and now, it was unlikely I’d be
able to move around freely enough to be able to accomplish anything. The
trouble with being news, is it makes you visible. And this job needed
invisible.

On the way up, I was thinking about what I
was going to need on the new station, which hadn’t been necessary before.
Things like a grand ballroom, different sized entertaining venues, and VIP visitor
accommodation. Possibly even areas set aside for diplomatic embassies. I made
some notes and sent them off to David Tollin.

By one thirty, everyone else was tucked up
in bed, while I was on the Bridge getting us moving. The 266 pilots had been
dropped off on the station first, and were speeding on ahead as before.

We pilots were going to have an interrupted
night, as the jump point was three hours away. But we could sleep in after.

Once away from the Orbital station, I
crawled into bed beside Aline and Angel, and went to sleep.

The jump into Argon, a bit after four
thirty, was routine. Jane got me up for it, and I went straight back to sleep
afterwards. I guess I wasn’t really needed on the Bridge for a jump, but a jump
point was the most likely place for something untoward to occur, and as captain
of the ship, it was my responsibility if something went wrong.

When I next awoke, I was alone. Aline and
Angel had presumably opted for breakfast, rather than waiting for me. I felt
okay about it too. While I was enjoying being with Aline, the words ‘Hunter’s
Harem’ floated in now and again. It’s funny how things said maliciously, stick
in your head and take root. It had been a taunt, but there was something to it,
and Aline was an embodiment of the taunt becoming true. I shook off the thought
process, and headed for the shower.

The Argon system connected to Avon two
ways. The next jump point connected both systems. But another jump point
connected to Avon through four other systems. With a fifth system also joined
to Argon, the group formed a sort of sub-sector within the Sci-Fi sector, named
for the species in the X universe games I’d loved as a kid. Exactly why these
names had been chosen had been lost. Some of the system ships which had joined
the multi-sector force, had come from this area of space. As the ships showed,
they were still serious about their science fiction origins, even if the
history was lost.

Zippy was doing cargo runs. According to
Jane, we had deliverables for Argon Prime, some of which would go on to the
other X systems. The freighter was also collecting cargo. The ship account was
looking very healthy, for such a little ship.

I spent the morning in my Ready Room with
emails. Angel came in at one point and curled up on my lap. David was asking
questions about the new station, and I answered them as best I could.

Among the usual junk, was a notice of an
island resort on Gold Coast, for lease or sale. It was large enough for all of
us, and I asked them for a six month lease. By the time I moved onto the Bridge
for the next jump, the lease had been confirmed. I emailed David to arrange for
it to be stocked with food and drink, so I wouldn’t need to worry about
anything when we arrived. If nothing else, I intended using it as a regular
getaway retreat. We all needed a decent holiday, and once the rest of the team
arrived on Custer, they would as well.

The jump into Avon was also routine. 266
had it down now, and BigMother hadn’t even needed to slow before jumping.

After lunch, the Generals and I spent the
last couple of hours before arriving at Avon discussing inter-sector
communications and other issues they’d thought of over the previous few days. I
had Jane give Price an encryption key to use for future emails.

He belatedly passed on our invitation to an
informal celebration to begin at three. I guess he hadn’t wanted me to think
about it too long, knowing how uncomfortable I was with celebrations now.

Almost exactly on two thirty, BigMother
docked at Avon Orbital. I’d debated if we should dock in Gunbus, but an email
from the station security office had assured me the docking area would be
secure for our arrival.

It wasn’t.

We gathered near the main Cargo Bay airlock
while Jane docked the ship. Nearby was an organized jumble of pallets ready to
offload.

“Fighting just broke out in the
docking area,” said Jane. “Looks like a small ambush force is
fighting with station security.”

“Let’s give them a hand then, shall
we?”

“Confirmed,” said Jane and the
girls together. They all giggled, as we drew our guns.

I was on my scooter, and knowing how
restricting this made my shooting, I stepped off it, and limped heavily to the
airlock.

I was wearing the Long Gun on my right
thigh, and a gatling stunner on my left. The second gatling stunner was on my
left hip, positioned for a right handed draw. I drew Long Gun and stunner, as
we waited for the airlock to open.

We stepped through looking for targets, our
suits went straight into protection mode, and were immediately hit with a
barrage of heavy pulses.

Jane and I were the only ones not to go
down. Jane because her droid frame could brace itself enough not to be affected
by the momentum of the shots, and me because I was now in mid hop.

Target acquisition went primary. The
gatling stunner spat in one direction, while the Long Gun sought the worst
threats. It spat twelve times in as many seconds, before I holstered it and
drew the other gatling stunner. Jane and I started moving forwards, taking fire,
and dishing it out.

The twelve threats I thought I’d
neutralized, rose up, and all fired Pulse Rifles at the two of us. I was in the
air again before I knew it, spitting fire back at the closest one. It seemed
ineffectual.

Time stopped.

I looked down on the situation from above.
The twins, Alison, and Aline, were all out cold, sprawled out behind where
they’d been standing moments before. Their suits were intact, but they’d each
taken multiple Pulse Rifle hits. Abagail, and both Generals were down, but in
the process of getting up. The Generals were wearing suits, I was relieved to
see. Amy was curled in a ball, her suit intact as well. Petersen was trying to
crawl away from the firing, her suit showing the first signs of shredding. Pyne
had multiple serious injuries. He was bleeding badly from the chest, and not so
badly in two other places. He hadn’t been wearing a suit belt. The nearest
security droid was in the process of changing back to a belt, and was moving
towards him.

I’d screwed up again.

Gung-ho had overridden paranoid, and my
team was down as a result, perhaps even badly injured. I couldn’t tell from
this perspective.

There looked to be three groups of
attackers. The group nearest us were armed with Pulse Rifles, and they were all
wearing suits. I’d only seen twelve Rifles, but there were actually twenty
five. Another twelve were armed with handguns. At a guess, the Pulse Rifles had
been aimed at me and my team, while the handguns had gone for the Generals and
their aides. Amy had simply been another target, even though it should’ve been
obvious she wasn’t armed, and wasn’t military.

The third group were the ones attacking the
station security force. Half of both sides were down, as none of them were
wearing suits.

It was as nice an ambush as I would ever
see, perfectly executed. Although three different groups seemed to be involved,
the co-ordination had been spot on.

Jane and I were rushing into more trouble
than we could handle.

Time restarted, and I pulled Jane to a halt,
and turned us to retreat back to the ship.

“Jane,” I said, as I hobbled back
the way we’d come, still taking fire, each step ending in a hop as the suit
took the hits, “get the team under cover and bring up the combat suits. We’re
outclassed as we are. Time to bring out the big guns.”

We made it to the airlock as security
droids pulled the rest around the side of the airlock, and out of the line of
fire.

I took up position where the airlock gave
me some protection, and continued firing. I pinged Price for authorization to
use heavy weapons on the station. He gave it.

Jane had a line of combat droids across the
airlock within another minute, blocking the way, in case whoever was attacking
us wanted in. But they only held stunners, so their fire was ineffectual. All
the same, no-one was going to get past them.

Twelve combat suits moved into position
behind them, carrying two Pulse Rifles each. None of them were Jane specials. I
raced to the nearest one, holstering as I went, and practically jumped in the
back. It closed on me, the gun I’d holstered on my hip dug into my side, and
the systems came online.

“Jane, leave the combat droids where
they are in case anyone gets past us. Let’s go get them with the suits.”

“Confirmed.”

“Charge!” I yelled.

I’ve always wanted to say that.

Twelve combat suits began moving
purposefully towards the attackers, who rose from behind their cover, and
blasted away at us with everything they had.

I used both Rifles as a single entity.
Acquire target, lock, and fire both. The targets went down under the double
hits, but some of them were able to rise again. They were given another dose.

By the time I reached the other side of the
dock area, only four belt suited figures remained on their feet.

Three of them were only using one arm,
while cradling some area of themselves, indicating heavy bruising underneath.

The fourth was standing there firing at me,
screaming his defiance of my advance. He was a giant of a man, and he’d braced
himself against a wall. He took my last double shot without flinching, firing
once more at me, before I smashed the butt of my right hand Pulse Rifle into
his head, followed by the left one into his chest. His head smacked back into
the wall, before following the rest of his body down to the deck.

I looked around for the next target, and
found them all down.

“Perimeter Jane. Interlace the combat
droids. Have some security droids collect all the weapons. Move our attackers
where they can be contained. Stun if they come to. If they won’t stun because
of a suit, pulse them.”

“Confirmed.”

I started looking for the local security
forces.

“Jon,” said Jane, “the team
need medical assistance. I’m loading them up onto a trolley now. Jump on the
back and ride shotgun as I go past.”

I pinged Lance Freelander, the station’s
head of security, to find out where he was. He replied he was on his way,
delayed by another group attacking his main security offices. I told him I was
taking my team for medical help, leaving combat droids in a perimeter around
the docking area. I also told him it looked to me like three combat teams had hit
us here, and they would need medical help as well, since I’d used heavy weapons
on them. There was damage to the station as well.

The trolley slowed as it came up to me, and
I swung up on the back, sitting on the rear seat, towering over the others, a
Pulse Rifle pointed front and back. A hole opened in the perimeter line, and we
went through fast.

People jumped out of the way, as the
trolley went full speed through the station. I looked at my team, while threat
assessments came and went on my HUD. The girls were still out. Pyne was being
carried by a security droid, its belt now configured as a bandage around his
wounds. He looked the worst hit, even though he’d only taken handgun fire. I
wondered why he hadn’t had a belt. Maybe it was something to do with his
dislike of droids and AI’s. Whatever it was, he was going to regret his
decision. If he survived.

The trolley pulled up outside the same
hospital I’d been taken the last time we were on Avon. The security droid was
the first off, sprinting Pyne inside. Jane must have called ahead, as medical
people poured out the door. In quick order, everyone was taken inside.

I stepped down from the trolley, opened the
back of the combat suit, stepped back out of it, and closed it behind me. Jane
took control, and moved it to guard the hospital entrance. I hobbled inside,
rubbing my left hip.

An administrator intercepted me before I
reached where the girls had been taken, extracted the fast version of what had
happened from me, and took me around so I could identify each person.

The girl’s suits had all responded to
medical requests to return to a belt form, and doctors were working on each of
them.

Abagail had been the luckiest, taking one
Pulse Rifle hit in the side, and several handgun hits.

Both the twins had three large welts in the
chest area.

Alison had also taken three. Two were to
the shoulder area, but the third had been almost exactly where her previous
wound had been.

Aline had taken four, one of which had been
directly over the heart, and another to the head. Her heart monitor flat lined
as I reached her. The doctors reacted immediately. I felt a huge hand grip my
own heart, and it felt like mine stopped as well. The monitor bleeped back into
life, and I started breathing again.

The sound of another flat line came from
the bed next door, but was quickly brought back to life. Pyne I guessed.

Jane came to stand next to me, and gently
pulled me away from the bed, out of the medical people’s way. Armed as I was, I
guess they hadn’t dared tell me to move.

“That was the third time Aline’s heart
stopped,” she said. “Her own Health Monitor restarted her the first
time, and the second time was on the way in, before they had her on the
monitor. She’s in a bad way Jon. You better prepare yourself for the
worst.”

I looked at her, tears running down my
cheeks. She wiped them away, and they were replaced with new ones.

“The others are fine though. The docs
are talking about keeping them sedated until their bodies come out of shock.
They’re going to be out of action for a while though. But the boosters on their
suits worked well enough to keep them alive. Aline was unlucky taking one
directly over the heart.”