The Hero's Companion (The Hunter Legacy) (2 page)

Greetings. I'm Jane.

I'm owned by Jonathon Hunter.

Oh, that’s not what I meant, you're getting
the wrong idea.

I'm not a slave, I'm an AI. Artificial
Intelligence. Top of the range, too. I even have my own avatar bodies.

It's my job to run Jon's ships for him, but
I also act as a bodyguard and confidant as well.

Jon may be my owner, but he is also my
friend and companion.

We are both creations of our author,
Timothy Ellis. Well, at least he likes to think so. We let him tell our story
for us.

I've been asked to explain some things for
you.

So far, The Hunter Legacy story has come to
the end of its second arc, after nine novels and two novella. Hero at Large,
Hunted Hero Hunting, Send in the Hero, Make or Break the Hero, Hail the Hero,
Burnside's Killer, Hire a Hero, Jane's Christmas, Hero to the Rescue, Hero at
the Gates, and The Long Road to Gaia.

We thank you for reading all of them.

But we were discussing things one night in
the rec room, and it was felt that some things mentioned in the books, may not
have been understood, or their origin may have been missed.

The author has made no secret that many
names and concepts come from science fiction, and other origins, some uniquely
Australian. And his using them is considered something of a tribute to what has
come before. So it's possible some may have missed the connections of things.

It's my job to dot the I's and cross the
T's, so to speak. I've done so more or less in the order encountered in the
books, listed by book.

So, let's do it.

The original television (tv) was square in
viewing area, although the screen itself was curved outwards.

Square screen indicates an early movie or
series, pre-1995 for sure, although some between then and 2000 were also square.

In the late 1990's, screens became flat
instead of large and bulky, as miniaturization of parts and new tech caught up
with designs and science fiction.

These then changed into wide screen formats
after 2000.

Flat screen will normally indicate
something made after 2000, for the wide screen format.

A few tv series started out square screen
and made the jump to flat screen before the end. Likewise movie series, where
the early ones are square, but the later ones flat.

Sux = Sucks = This is very bad (for me).

Suss = Suspect = Suspicious

Marvin (the paranoid android) lived for
three times the life of the universe, due to people mucking around with time.
In all that time, he complained about the pain in all the diodes down his left
side. And in all that time, the only things not replaced, were the diodes down
his left side.

There is only one man who can possibly have
created such an android, and he was of course, British. Douglas Adams, in The
Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, a trilogy in five parts.

Adams was the typical writer, who struggled
financially for most of his life, and died after writing a movie screenplay of
his most recognized book, but before the movie began production. When they made
the tv series from the first two books, he had to do the nude scene himself. So
it goes for the artist. Fame and fortune, after you die.

THHGttG, was/is Space Opera which proves it
doesn’t have to be serious and full of space battles, to be good reading.

The author considers this series to be
among the funniest ever written, and can of course recite key parts of it at
inappropriate times.

Personal Computer.

The original computers occupied whole
rooms. In the late twentieth century, miniaturization techniques brought them
down to the size of a large box, and then down to the size of a large book.
Versions were designed for communication devices small enough to fit in the
hand.

The miniaturization process never ended.

By the 27
^th
century, the PC had
been reduced to the size where it can be implanted into a person's head, where
it integrates with the brain. The line between thinking and processing is well
and truly blurred.

There were the usual outcries about
creating cyborgs and pickled brains, when the first PC was implanted. The first
failures were spectacular and the process was almost abandoned. Almost, but not
quite. As legislation was being drafted to add implanted computers to the list
of banned science, along with cloning and other contentious issues, the
breakthrough was made. Key legislators were shown the advantages offered, and
the legislation quietly died.

Nowadays, the procedure is done with children
at the age of six, with simple models. One of the attractions of coming of age
at eighteen is the removal of your juvenile PC and the implanting of an adult
model.

The medical monitor is a program running on
your PC, which constantly checks your physical condition. As well as bringing
problems to your attention, it has the ability to administer pain relief, and
regulate some bodily functions.

The latter allows such things as the blush
override, and sexual arousal override. Every teen goes through the experience
of blushing unexpectedly, and being teased about it. Most teen boys experience
sexual arousal they cannot control (along with some women), with noticeable side
effects, which are always embarrassing at the time.

For adults, regulation of bodily functions
can be an aid for sex, allowing the control of sexual climax. Such things as
premature ejaculation became unheard of, once this ability was added to the
implanted PC. For women, the ability to control the release of eggs, removed
the cycle of release, and the unpleasant side effects associated with it, while
allowing full control over when they became pregnant.

The monitor also checks for the contraction
of, or contact with any form of disease. Sexually transmitted diseases vanished
not long after the monitor was given the ability to kill cells that might
infect the body.

The monitor also has the ability to create
certain effects, such as minor pain reduction.

In the days of sailing ships on old Earth,
the term Privateer came to mean a ship crewed by private individuals, who held
a commission from a government, to capture merchant ships during a time of war.
Proceeds were usually split with the government. They were one step above being
Pirates, who took what they wished for themselves.

As man moved out into space, and found it
too expensive to protect their far flung holdings, the Privateers came back
into their own. Private Citizens with the means to build or buy their own
ships, became law enforcers, for payments called bounties. Rules of conduct
were enforced, at first by governments, and later by the Sectors and the three
Guilds. When a Privateer went rogue, they had a bounty placed on their own head,
and someone else would collect on them.

By the 27
^th
century, the
Privateer was also a class of ship. Usually a form of heavy fighter, they were
designed with living areas, so the pilot could spend long periods in space,
without needing to land anywhere.

We had an argument over including this
section. Jon thought everyone had heard it too often already. I thought it
needed to be included for reference sake. Annabelle did a face-palm. The twins
laughed at us. BA was too busy in the gun ranges to be bothered commenting.
George said 'Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes'. Personally I can't see
the point of damning torpedoes. Their job is to go boom, and damning them makes
no difference to the outcome.

Anyway, it's my book, so you get to make
sure you understood all this. Or you can skip it and go direct to the next
reference.

Missiles were first properly developed for
war in the nineteen forties. Down the centuries, they became more powerful and
smaller. Originally needing a 'hard point' to be mounted on the exterior of an
aircraft or space craft, eventually they became small enough for launchers to
be developed. These come with a magazine of twenty or fifty missiles. The
better launchers could use reload magazines. The best allowed selection of the
type of missile to fire next, allowing different kinds of missiles in the same
magazine. Launchers required more space than hard points, so it is rare for a
ship below the size of a Privateer to carry them.

Dumb fire are a simple, cheap, fire and
forget missile. It goes where you point it. If you aim it badly, it won't hit.
They are not very powerful, and not widely used anymore.

Heat seekers are a fire and forget missile,
which as the name suggests, seeks a heat source and targets this only. As there
is no natural heat in space, the only heat is from space ship engines. While
this dissipates quickly, the heat seeker is very sensitive and very accurate.
However, it too is not very powerful.

FF is the Fire and Forget, a missile that
only targets an enemy generally. Once you fire it, you have no control over it.
It picks its own target. If the target is destroyed or stops being an enemy, it
goes after another one.

IR, or Image Recognition missile, takes the
data from your target lock, plus any pre-given instructions, and only goes
after that specific target. You fire them at a specific ship, or a specific
place on the ship. The main use of these is to kill the pilot without unduly
damaging the ship itself. While they can target anywhere on the ship, as long
as the pilot is alive, and the power source is active, the ship can still fire
guns and missiles, even if it cannot actually move. If the pilot is dead, so
effectively is the ship.

The IR is about a third the destructive
power of the FF, but much more accurate. Three IR's can take down the shield of
a standard fighter, and do some damage, while a single FF could do the same.
But it is extremely unlikely two FF's would ever hit in the same place, where
the IR's are programmed to. FF's are useful for distractions, especially at the
beginning of a battle, as they are dangerous to those who ignore them. IR's are
more of a surgical strike weapon, and more use later in a battle when you have
time to think before selecting targets.

An IR is the only anti-ship missile which
can target and kill another missile.

Or it was until the Mosquito system was
developed. Designed to be an anti-missile missile, it is guided to its target
by the same sort of guidance system used by the IR, but programmed by an AI. It
can be launched individually, or one hundred at a time. The full firing takes a
top of the line AI a full second to fully target to one hundred incoming
missiles.

Holographic systems were thought of as far
back as the twentieth century. However, it wasn't until the twenty fifth
century they became a reality. These days, almost anything can be duplicated
holographically. After implanted PC's became popular, the holo tech was added
to them, giving a person the ability to dispense with all forms of solid input
and output mechanisms. The interesting thing is however, the original solid
forms were never fully replaced, as many people still prefer to touch
something. Hence pads are still commonly used, as are wall screens.

Little is known of the Prophesy called the
"Coming of Darkness". A small group of reclusive people, calling
themselves the 'Keepers', are custodians to prophesy, and guard its secrets.

The first sign of this 'coming of
darkness', is the birth of a child named Jonathon Hunter, to the family of the
Hunter who captained the first explorer vessel from Earth, in the twenty first
century.

The second sign is the suffering of a
recurring nightmare of the first coming of darkness.

To date, there have been four Jonathon
Hunters born, several hundred nightmare sufferers, and yet prophesy hasn’t been
fulfilled.

Further information has not been
forthcoming from the Keepers.

It is also not known why Prophesy the verb
is used more often than not, instead of Prophecy the noun. Presumably, only the
Keepers can explain this discrepancy.

Amanda (Tapping) was the first name of the
actor to play Sam Carter in the tv series Stargate SG1, and Helen Magnus in
Sanctuary. She is one of the author's favorite actors.

Jane was the middle name of Sarah Jane
Smith, from the square screen tv series Doctor Who, now known as Classic Who.

Sarah came from the same name.