"The Emperor has officially granted permission for a Campaign medal to be issued to everyone here."
"The President has given the same permission," said Hallington.
"The Queen has given the same permission," said Bentley.
"I approved," I said.
The room laughed, which is what I’d been after.
"The medal," went on Sato, "is being delivered to each of your quarters at this moment. It is in the form of a cross, where each arm of the cross is inscribed with an icon of each sector military present. Across the middle is a representation of the Command Carrier sacrificed to remove the enemy's main asset from them. The ribbon is Hunter red, with three white stripes. As far as I can determine, the Emperor has never granted a joint medal before. It is a great honor for all of us."
He bowed again, and more than half the crowd bowed back.
I was about to call for the party to recommence, when Jane interrupted me, and led me away so we could speak privately.
"You’re going to want to see this."
The other shoe dropped, making me feel like it had smashed me across the head on its way. I knew what was coming. I dreaded seeing it. Jane sent me a link, and I popped up a hollo only I could see.
It was from the comnavsat in the Famine system, at the War jump point. I'm not sure why we could still access it, since the next one in the chain was supposedly too high in War to join with a signal coming through the jump point. But why didn’t matter. I’d ask Jane later.
There was a cylinder of alien ships crossing to jump.
Thirty Eight
I cancelled the hollo, and opened a vid.
"Bad news. We have confirmation another wave of aliens is approaching the War jump point. We'll know soon enough if they can cross War in the state it's in, but we have to assume they will. If not immediately, then sometime in the near future. I know a few ways I’d do it with their resources, so there is no point thinking they are bottled up. Tell everyone to keep preparations going. Hunter Out."
"Send it Jane. Copy to Amy immediately. She needs to spin a media version ASAP."
"Confirmed."
I told Janet to pop up a screen everyone could see, and walked back to where I'd left so abruptly.
I sighed, and a lot of faces fell.
"The war is back on again," I said as deadpan as I could manage. I pointed to the screen. "This is live in the Famine system, and as you can see, another cylinder of alien ships is approaching the War jump point. The only conclusions are, they had another ship captured with the same shield emitters as the Battleship, or they learned how to copy them. We seemed to have slowed them down, but it hasn’t stopped them."
"Will they get through War?" asked BA.
"Can they?" asked several other people.
"We'll know in about three days. We no longer have vid capability in War at the jump point level. All we're going to see is them disappearing in, if they do. Until rocks stop coming through here, we won't know where they are or how successful they've been in crossing War. Although we might be able to find out."
"Orders Admiral?" asked Susan Bentley.
"We blockade for now, and prepare to fight for this system in about eighty four hours' time, since our comnavsat can see about twenty one hours away, and they are only just on the scan. In the meantime, nothing is going to happen tonight or tomorrow, so let's get this party moving again!"
I turned to Jane.
"The Drone ships can stay here to monitor the jump point. Let's move Redoubt and all the crewed ships to Last Hope. Crews can have some R&R down on the planet if they want. We'll move back in plenty of time."
"Confirmed."
Contrary to my expectation, the party did indeed start back up again, and given no-one needed to be bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning, I think a lot of them decided a good party before dying time arrived was a good idea.
Nothing had actually changed for me. The game plan remained the same. Barring unexpected problems, we'd bleed them again, and pull back to Last Hope. Without taking any casualties. I hoped.
Aline pulled me out onto Jane's dance floor, shifted into a disco outfit, and boogied me around the floor fast enough to bring my mood back up. The rest of the team joined us, with Dick and D-Jane doing a fast waltz around us.
About midnight, I threatened to turn into a pumpkin unless we called it a night. Aline didn't seem to mind. Sitting on a side table in my lounge room we found our new medals, and Aline's new rank bars. Angel wasn’t too happy I hadn't been back in a long time. So we both made an effort to cheer her up.
"You didn't need to promote me Jon," Aline said after a silence for a while. "But I'm not refusing it."
"Of course I did. You've been behaving like an officer for a long time now. Sure a good Sergeant uses initiative, but you really think about what you're doing. I've seen you doing it ever since you started bossing a squad around."
"I do not boss!"
"No, you don’t. You actually behave like a good Lieutenant does. And I need some Lieutenants now. The twins and Alison got promoted for other reasons, and the team is top heavy. Amanda and Aleesha need a good junior officer, more than they need a Sergeant, since we have plenty spread out among the teams. And we need an officer who knows how to put the flag pole up properly, and doesn’t need to rely on a Sergeant to get it done. Especially for Team One, where promoting you makes more sense than trying to teach someone with no experience. You earned the promotion, and while I could have upped you to the next NCO rank, it's actually a waste of your talents."
"You think my talents are wasted?" she said in a husky voice.
I quickly found out what other talents she was referring to.
Thirty Nine
I didn’t sleep well. I dreamed of riots and people blaming me.
"That fucking Hunter left us all here to die," woke me up.
It was only four in the morning, but I got up anyway, leaving Aline and Angel to sleep on. I thunked down into my chair in my suite's office, and called Jane. Jeeves came in immediately, and put ginger ale and water in front of me. I sipped at the ginger ale.
Jane came in silently and sat opposite me, without saying anything.
"Show me," I said.
"Yes my Lord," answered Janet, and she popped up multiple media screens.
They were as bad as I thought. Parties had turned back into riots. I shook my head, and waved them off again.
"What do I do?" I asked.
"Context?" asked Jane.
"I can slow them down at the jump point, or we can help more people escape. I'm not sure we can do both adequately."
"We do have a contingency plan for the Latin and African sectors."
"Will they thank us for it?"
"Probably not."
We'd assumed neither sector would build enough station tugs, so we'd built a lot of them in case. They were never going to be wasted, being sure to be useful somewhere along the spine.
"Fine, Move-it! is authorized. I want the shipyards moved to the Nepal jump point in Egypt as soon as possible. Jane, as we planned, the tugs go in and attach, you secure each one with combat droids, and take over the station. It can keep producing as it moves. The same with the orbital and jump point stations. Attach, secure, and take them over. Then take over all the shuttles, and pick up as many people as you can, or the station will hold. Once full, or there is no-one left who wants to leave, send the station to join the shipyards. In any case, you monitor the alien advance, and make sure all the stations have enough time to get out."
"Confirmed."
"Secure-it! is also authorized. Send the earmarked freighters to wherever the stockpiles are, and secure as much as possible. Check the inventories of all stations, and distribute as much as you can. In any case, by the time all the stations arrive in Egypt, the Treasure Chest station should be there as well, and any surplus resources should be stored there."
"Confirmed."
We needed food, water, and air, for millions, if not hundreds of mil
lions of people. None of the stations were going to have enough stocks of anything. We'd have to take what was being left behind, because no-one had planned on how to move it. The droids would be looking out for other things as well.
The thing was, once we abandoned a planet, we knew everything left behind would vanish once the aliens arrived. Waste not, want not. If it was left behind, was useful, and we had the space for it, I wanted it taken if we had the time.
"Evacuate Treasure Chest as well. Move our own shipyard to Libya. One less thing to think about. It will extend our supply line, but I’d rather not risk it. Hopefully, the aliens won't find the jump points for there at all, given they are in so non-standard a place."
"Confirmed, and we can but hope."
"Start finding out how preparations are going in the next sectors, and gear our shipyard to producing what they need in a hurry."
"Already in progress."
I yawned, and was finding it hard to think. Not enough sleep, and too much responsibility. Never a good combination for decision making.
"What are our immediate problems? Other than the jump point."
"Defending Last Hope."
"I notice you didn’t say evacuating Last Hope."
"We both know they will never leave. They think they can hide away like they did from the pirates, and come out when the aliens have gone past."
"That could be years."
"They fully expect that."
"We don’t know for sure it won't work."
"Not for sure, no. But I’d give them a less than ten percent chance of survival."
"Me too. Are the cams in position?"
"Yes. Topside, and inside their bunker."
"We still need to find out if we can fight them."
"There is news on that front. We received a shipment of gun boosters yesterday, while the party was going on. They fit any size ship weapon, and give a forty percent boost to hit values. The new rifles and handguns arrived as well. BA was informed as soon as they got here, and has the teams scheduled for testing them in the morning. The tech team made an interesting leap, and the new Meson's have a white beam now, on the assumption that black doesn’t like white, only put in technical jargon. The pulses from other guns are now white as well. We'll know fairly quickly if they're effective against the aliens we have in the freezer. If it works, I’ll get your three guns modified."
"Fine. But Fearless should leave for New Hope as soon as they have an answer one way or the other. They need to dig in for a proper defense. As much as I think it's pointless, we have to do it at least once, and prove it can't be done."
"Isn't that a bit negative my Lord?"
"It's after four in the morning. I don’t do positive when I'm mostly asleep. The best I can manage is real."
Neither of them laughed.
"What about Morocco?" asked Jane.
"What's their situation?"
"Dire would be the best word. They have no hope of evacuating most of their people."
"Can we help?"
"Of course. We rebuilt Preserver and Deliverer explicitly for this purpose. And the Explorer ships were modified to support them."
"How is it best to deploy them?"
"Preserver and Enterprise, Deliverer and Prometheus."
"Fine, send all four to Morocco. Have Homer and Bonko's Club attached as well, one to each fleet. If they need boots on the ground for riot control or just imposing order at the pickup points, the SAS should be able to handle it. Divide up 617 between them as escort. One squadron runs CAP at all times for each fleet. Hobbs has the overall command. Evacuate as many people as possible, and then offload to the stations in Libya. Or to any of the stations coming through from Latin sector, if they have room. Worst case, dump people on Libya forcibly, and return for more, or to RV with us wherever we are. Probably be new orders before then anyway."
"What about Libya?"
"I know, they'll hate it. But by then, they should be organizing their own evacuation. If need be, bombard the next sectors up the spine to send any free ship down to help, letting them know they can pick up people modules at our shipyard on the way."
"They won't release many."
"I know. We'll worry about that later."
I had contingency plans for this as well, but no-one was going to like them. At some point, our ability to get people off a planet was going to be compromised by not having anywhere to put them. For now, I wasn’t at all sure where the balance was. We might be pulling them off one world, only to leave them on another. Nothing about this was acceptable, but I was limited in what I could do with no-one else helping.
"Galactica?"
"Tell Dad he can stay here or help at Morocco. Until we get him a landing ship, getting people to him will be slow."
"The landing ship issue might be doable."
"How so?"
"In the short term, Hurndalls Stallion is almost here. She'd been re-fitted to take people, and Richard offered to help."
"Accept with my thanks. If Dad goes to Morocco, Richard should act as his main landing craft. Augment his combat droids though. I want the family protected from any kind of threat, especially against people trying to take control of the ship. Better put an avatar on their ship, just in case. Get Lacey to assign one of the Privateer squadrons to Galactica as a CAP. Half squadron on active patrol at all times."
"Confirmed. There is another landing ship possibility too, and this is some good news."
"I could use some good news about now."
"BigMother is salvageable after all. The damage was as bad as we feared, but the Battleship's underside was intact. The plan is to meld the topside of both ships together, and seal the rest of the removed hull area, putting Battleship guns on top. Once sealed, the CCC on both ships will be operable. Deck One was a write off. Deck Two can be made livable again. The rest of the ship can be converted like Preserver, to carry as many people as it can, and land on planets. She's a little big for that, but we know it works for her smaller cousins."
"Good news indeed. When will she be ready?"
"About a week, so most likely joining us in Brazil. The Battleship will act as a new spine, and the rest will be braced as much as possible. As long as she isn’t thumped onto the ground too hard, she should be fine."
"Send her to RV with Galactica. Once we withdraw from Last Hope, Fearless can join that fleet."
"Confirmed."
"Most of our freighters are now tied up with one thing or another. There might be a few small freighters like Zippy to help ferry people up as well."
"No, have them on support details. We need the food and supplies as well. There is no point in pulling people off, if we can't feed them. That road leads only to disaster."
"Roger that."
"Relay orders to captains as they wake, and those moving out should get going as soon as possible. Have we missed anything?"
"Sleep?"
"Yes."
I went back to bed, slipping in next to Aline without waking her. Angel opened one eye, stared at me, and closed it again. I had time to smile, and mine closed as well.
I dreamed of a Borg Cube, roaming our space, assimilating people in the millions. It grew bigger as it went, absorbing more and more people.
"We are human. You will be rescued. Resistance is futile."
I woke up knowing what to do. It was now five thirty, and I’d had barely another hours' sleep. Again I slipped out, and called Jane back to my office.
"Forget what I said about what the Shipyard should be doing. I want it to rapidly put together a giant cube shaped hull. It only needs to be space worthy. No protection needed, just a basic airtight shell. Life support, racking, and facilities for millions of people. Station tugs to move it. Docking for our big ships on all faces, so they can all offload at once. Extra external docking arms to match up with the ship's other airlocks, so offloading is as fast as possible. Security droids in suits for crowd control. Combat droids in suits for anti-riot actions. Better add in a
large brig section for troublemakers or criminals who need to be kept locked away. Food handling and storage facilities. Food production if you can fit it in."
"How big do you want it?"
"That’s the other thing, I want it to self-build, or at least the Shipyard keeps making it bigger. The outer hull with the docks on it, should be detachable, so it can be pushed out and more built inside them, while the docks are not being used. By the time it gets to the top of the spine, it'll probably be carrying hundreds of millions, maybe more."
"What demented nightmare made you think of this?"
"Yeah, it was actually. I was thinking about Borg Cubes. It's also completely unacceptable for me to leave people behind if we can avoid it. Time might defeat us at this end, but I'll be damned if it's because we didn’t try to carry them all."
"Detachable walls won't work. And those airlocks are probably necessary anyway, as a means of isolating each level. Make a cube, fill it, lock it up, build out the next level, rinse and repeat. The arms can be detached and moved outwards, but we just keep building new airlocks. If we lose containment in the outside level for any reason, the inside ones will still be safe."
"Build it however it will work. Just don’t ignore people needs. We can't have those in the center running out of food because the people on the outside won't let it move inwards."
"As if I'd let that happen."
"This has all the hallmarks of an incredibly brilliant idea, which in the long run turns out to be a disaster."
"We'll have to make sure it isn’t. What about resources?"
"Keep the Shipyard and the Cube near to each other. The mining ships for the Shipyard are to go for whatever asteroid field is nearby, which has what is needed. I'm not interested in politics or who owns what any more. No-one owns more than they can carry now. If we need it for station building, take it."
"And if someone objects?"
"Missile platforms. Build enough to defend both stations. Dock them to anywhere with free space. Deploy them if anything threatens. If something does happen, I want to know about it."
"Confirmed."
"Can we have something built and ready to take the masses about to be packed onto the Explorer ships?"
Hunter Legacy 12: Hero in Darkness Page 17
