I looked at BA before Annabelle could say anything.
"No damage to them. Stunners only. We're the good guys. Remember that."
BA nodded, and Annabelle started barking orders. The team vanished.
I retreated into my Ready Room, and had Jeeves bring me dinner in there. I emailed the Latin three star Admiral, and asked him what his orders were for defending the jump point. What came back didn't surprise me in the least.
Not long after leaving, we shot past Fearless, going twice as fast, thanks to Crystal augmented speed.
"Now that’s just showing off Boss," said George, over ship coms.
At seven, with food thankfully out of the way, the first images came in from Morocco. Alien ships landed in the center of every city and town, and the slaughter began. I sat there feeling numb. My hot anger cooled, and became icy.
We arrived at the planet just after eight, docked at one of the stations so the people I’d forgotten we had on board, who had been stopped from offloading by my abrupt departure, and who now were desperately in need of facilities, could be offloaded. The two Dropships we had in the hanger dropped immediately. Annabelle had gone with them this time. She was the only one not in a combat suit. It was easy to tell which team was going where. Grace took a lot longer to pull up than team two's pilot, and she dropped them on the top of the building housing the committee hard enough to crack the roof pad. I'm pretty sure it was deliberate.
I watched the progress of both teams through their suit cams. Garcia and half the committee had to be stunned, as was the media CEO and producer. The anchor waited until her bosses were prone on the floor before she grinned wildly, and called in a cam operator to come with her.
By nine, they were all waiting for me in the conference room.
Fifty Five
The team were out of their combat suits, but standing around with hands on stunners. The committee were on their feet, and yelling at anyone and everyone. I stood in the doorway for a moment. Amanda rolled her eyes at me.
"Shut the fuck up!" I roared.
The noise died, and all heads turned to me.
"What gives you the right to kidnap us?" asked Garcia, belligerently.
I walked in and stood at the head of the table, and gave him an icy stare.
"Didn’t you say I was the one who took what he liked from your sector? I've taken you. Now sit down and shut up."
I could feel Kali's scepter wanting to materialize as the sword on my back, and the energy of it surged down the table at him, making him turn white. He wasn’t the only one. BA was grinning. I noticed she was standing along the wall, closest to Garcia, who'd taken the other end of the table for himself. His eyes went to the three guns I was wearing, and he sat, as did everyone else. I joined them.
"This meeting is being recorded."
That shook them, as none of them had considered I'd do such a thing. I looked at the media CEO, and then his producer.
"Document why you think I'm a coward."
I silenced the anchor with my raised finger, before she could do more than get her mouth open, and pointed it at the CEO. He spluttered, but said nothing. The finger moved to the producer. He parroted what I'd previously heard, and stopped talking when he noticed I wasn’t listening.
"Amy, show them their show, and what you found."
Amy waved her hand at the wall twice, and their interview started playing on the left, with a similar looking desk and interview situation paused on the right. When the left excerpt finished, she played the right side. They were word for word.
The only difference between them, was the person being interviewed on the right, was a four star Admiral. Him I knew, and he didn’t like me. I suspected one day soon, I’d have to shoot him, but I wasn’t looking forward to it.
"Anyone care to comment on why your interview is identical to this Earth media interview?" I asked the room generally.
No-one said anything, but the CEO and producer were going pink. The anchor was laughing quietly to herself, and her cam operator was taking it all in. My guess was she was out of a job, knew it, and was happy about it. Maybe I’d get Amy to hire her.
"For the record."
I stopped and let that gut punch them.
"My policy at the jump points is no ship allows its shields to fall below fifty percent. This is to avoid losing ships like we did last time. We did lose them, because fifty percent shielding for those ships proved to be inadequate to stand a hit from the aliens at that point in the battle. I got it wrong, and two ship crews died, we lost valuable weapons, and a third ship was damaged."
"We are NOT here to defend your sector."
I let that sink in for a moment.
"We are here to preserve as much of the human race as it's possible to save. You people ignored me seven months ago. You've made bugger all attempt to save yourselves, and now you have the gall to accuse me of leaving too early. I'm NOT about saving planets that can't be bothered getting off their arses and taking warnings seriously. I am about saving those I can."
I waved at the wall, and an image of a huge cube appeared.
"THIS, is a station I'm building in the Libya system at the moment. It's designed to carry fifty million people to start with. As it moves up the spine, it's going to grow BIGGER. By the time it reaches the Australian sector it could have more than a hundred million people on it."
Jaws dropped.
"Stations that big don’t build themselves. They need resources. I don’t have time to mine them. I have ships which never had life support installed on them. These ships are collecting what is needed to build that station, which will house as many of your people as I can get to it. Gold, silver, lead, tin, you name it, ship building uses it."
I looked around the table. Then nodded to Amy. She waved again. The live feed from Morocco appeared. I let them watch it for a full minute, in full gory detail, as people were slaughtered in the thousands, and their bodies eaten. Two of the committee threw up. The rest of them were white, including the anchor and the cam operator. We left the vomit where it fell. Amy waved off the carnage.
"NOTHING is going to be left of your sector. Nothing but barren planets which will take fifty years to recover. If it was left behind, THEY will eat it!"
I paused again, making eye contact with everyone. Or trying to.
"My ships are collecting everything valuable we can, especially art work and cultural icons, gold and precious gems. Gold is used in electronics still. Gems get used in some weapon assemblies. What can't be used will be stored for when we do need it. Everything will be stored in vacuum and zero gee, and go with the stations. Once they reach Gaia, and the stations and people have permanent homes again, what can be restored to owners will be. The rest will be restored to the sector of origin."
"But my ships are also gathering food, water, clothing, footwear, mattresses, linen, blankets, medications, hygiene products, and a long list more. You saw the lines of people being loaded onto my ships on Morocco. Many of them had only what they could fit on their backs, and none of them had what they need in a week's time."
I looked straight at where the main cam was.
"You people viewing this up the spine need to understand this. You not only need to flee, you need to take everything you need with you, without leaving people behind to do it. And not only that, we need you to supply the stations and all the ships fleeing with them with food, water, and the necessities of life, as soon as they jump into your spine system. There is no point in me busting a gut and risking all our lives to save people who later die of starvation and lack of water. It's on you because once you join this exodus up the spine, you will become reliant on those further up spine in your turn. And at the end, all of you will be reliant on ME, and the stocks I manage to prepare in the Outback system, which I am not there to supervise. You have time, these people don’t. Use it well."
I turned my attention back to the committee.
"I'M DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB FOR YOU! You govern this sect
or. You ignored my warnings. I'm the one doing your bloody work."
I had to stop and breathe. No-one said anything.
"We left Morocco when we did to avoid being seen by even one alien ship. One ship sees you, sees a jump point, they all know where you are, where it is, in that instant. We want them to work hard for any information as to where we are, and where the next jump point is. Why? Because the longer they take to find planets and jump points, the more time we have for evacuations and moving up spine safely. I shouldn't need to tell you any of this shit. All of it is out there, and anyone with half a brain should know it. Especially at your level."
"We're going to lose that here anyway. Ships will come through here from all over the Latin sector long after we've pulled out, and most of them are going to be destroyed. The first of them will most likely lead the aliens straight to the Libya jump point. Not much we can do about it here. We'll pay for it in Libya, but I am going to give those ships a slim chance to survive."
"I have two of the original Explorer vessels due here shortly. Both have been redesigned to house and transport hundreds of thousands of people each, while still being full combat vessels. My Father commands Galactica, and my Mother is the coordinator for housing aboard her. It's not my own life I'm risking here, it's my families as well. My closest friends are in this room. We chose to be here. We don’t need to be."
I looked at Garcia.
"YOU. You have a choice to make. If you don’t like the job I'm doing, say so right now. Say the word, and every one of my ships will go to their top speed, and we will leave your sector behind. I should be at the other end of the spine right now, trying to build defenses for my own space. I'm not. Even though I don’t appear to be welcome, I have allies here. The Japanese sent a fleet. The Americans sent a fleet. The British sent skilled people and an SAS battalion. The Australians sent ground troops. What did you send into MY space, where the aliens hit first? Not a fucking thing!"
"Choose! Do I stay or do I go? If I go, my next stop will be Nippon, where I will do my damndest to make sure every single Japanese who wants to leave gets a chance to do so. How can I do that? Because they believed me seven months ago. They planned. They built. They are motivated to survive. They are gearing up as we speak to move their entire population."
I brought my voice back under control.
"What are you doing? You’ve issued orders to your Fleet Admiral which will result in the total destruction of your fleet here at the Brazil Morocco jump point. No retreat you told him. Hold to the last man you said. You actually believe that will change anything?"
"All that does is sacrifice good ship crews and valuable hulls, for NOTHING! You won't gain a minute for the sacrifice. I've offered to take any ship which wants to join me when I pull out of here in a couple of days' time. I've recommended your Admiral declare your orders as unlawful, and he pulls back when he's ordered to by me, at the appropriate point in the battle to come, and preserves his people and ships. Ships I can modify to be more effective, given enough time. I have a shipyard building a station. As soon as it's complete, part of it will be returned to ship modifications, building more station tugs, and people modules for freighters. Your two shipyards will shortly be joining mine in Libya, where they'll be updated to do ship upgrades to my specifications. Every single hull we can make more effective, is a few minutes longer we can hold a jump point. The longer we can slow them down, the more people we save. That’s the equation!"
"Your Admiral is a good man. You can order him to die, and he might just follow that order. But let me tell you what's going to happen now."
I looked around at all of them.
"You," I said, pointing at the anchor, "are going to interview Amy over there, while you discuss everything which has been said here in a live interview. At the end of that interview, you and your cam operator will be escorted anywhere you wish to go. I suspect you're out of a job already, so if you are, and Amy agrees, you can come and work for her. If not, General Smith will see you where you want to go."
"The rest of you are going straight from here to your fleet's flagship. You will have a ringside seat of the next battle, your fate will be the same as the fate of that ship, and will be decided by what orders you give to your Admiral before the battle starts. You will not be leaving that ship for any reason. I will be sending combat droids to make sure of this. If you do manage to leave the ship during the battle, the aliens will kill you. If they do not, I will."
"On the other hand, sensible orders to your Admiral will allow you all to, hopefully, survive, and we will all fall back here while final evacuations are done, and then fall back to Libya. By then you and your families will be on one of those stations out there, and you will work to keep your people fed, watered, and as comfortable as possible."
"So. What's it going to be?"
They'd forgotten I’d even asked a question to begin with. I waited for them. Garcia finally cleared his throat, which obviously had a whole pond full of frogs inside it.
"Admiral Hunter, on behalf of the Latin sector committee, I apologize for the slander leveled against you. I formerly place our forces under your command, and request that you not abandon us because of our stupidity. We are grateful for every person you are able to save, and will now dedicate ourselves to getting our people through this forced exodus. Our people did it once before when we were forced to leave Earth, we can do it again. If you require anything of us, please ask."
And I didn’t see that coming at all.
"General?"
"Sir?"
"I don’t know what time these people are on, but if they need food, please see they get it. We'll be returning to the fleet as soon as Fearless is here, and our Cargo Bay is empty. Up to you who leaves with us, or who stays to accompany our guests."
"Aye sir."
I rose, nodded down the table, and left.
Fifty Six
Fearless and the evacuation fleets were already here as it turned out. I’d been ranting for a lot longer than I thought I had.
Aline's squad remained behind to escort the committee. We arrived back at the jump point a little after midnight, and after making sure our guests were transferred to the Latin flagship, I went to bed. Aline didn’t wake me when she returned, but was gone when I woke the next morning, late. I could tell she'd been there though.
I used a Lightning again, and spent the morning down on Brazil. BigMother looked weird now. Like a dolphin was humping a manta ray. She was sitting on the stumps of buildings the same as Preserver. Only instead of a flat top with small turrets on it, down the middle she had a Battleship. The front end had the usual two twin gun turrets, and the third was at the rear end, but looked it had the modifications to rise up and fire forward. So six Battleship guns, plus Cruiser and Destroyer guns, with down the side capital ship missile launchers and Mosquitos.
I gave Jane orders to offload her and bring her to the jump point before four. We needed the extra firepower, but not with a ship full of refugees on board. Once we fell back, she could resume her task here.
When I returned to Relentless at the jump point for lunch, Amy showed me a big change in media coverage. All but Earth system were supportive of me now.
My emails included requests for suggestions for ship design issues, which I did my best on. I also suggested shipyard managers get in touch with Nippon, Dallas, Avon, and Sydney shipyards, whose people could also make suggestions, since they knew my ship designs.
Mining stations all the way up the spine offered to start supplying my shipyard with resources they had already begun to stockpile, in exchange for assurances the station tugs to move them up spine would be there for them well in advance of needing to move. I assured all of them this was most acceptable, and had Jane commune with her shipyard clone to schedule the making of the tugs. Those higher up the spine were allocated to Bob, who was still in Outback.
I began to wonder if we'd missed some mining stations in the Latin sector, but it was too late now. Ships
were still streaming out of the jump point, quite a few of them mine. It was way past too late to send anything the other way. I told Jane to double check on stations in every sector, to make sure none of them, whatever they were for, were left behind by accident, or because they were not able to get their own tugs organized. It didn’t matter what size they were, every additional station we retrieved provided extra living space. There was no longer any such thing as a 'private station' in my mind, although doubtless a few people would think otherwise, and need to be convinced at the point of a stunner. I filed that away as a bridge to be crossed when we got to it.
By four, we were formed up at the jump point, watching the cylinder form on the other side. We were getting really good at it now, and so were they.
We rinsed, they repeated. With BigMother filling in some of the firepower we missed from the ships at Brazil, we held our own for three hours, the Corvettes withdrawing and returning as usual, and the Latin fleet doing the same, only more often. A small percent won past us, but not enough to really worry me.
For a while I'd watched a pop up of the committee sitting in horrified silence as they witnessed war at its most brutal, in ringside seats.
Not long after seven, we began to lose control. It began with the fighters and Privateers running out of ordinance together, and the order for them to dock. The Corvettes withdrew shortly after by necessity, and then the Latin fleet.
The feed from the Latin flagship vanished all of a sudden, as did the shield indicator.
"What happened Jane?"
"They're gone."
"Gone?" asked Dick before I could.
"One of their Destroyers was slow withdrawing, and the flagship moved to cover them. It took a hit intended for the Destroyer, and she blew. The Destroyer is damaged and only making half speed. Admiral Sato already has a Gunbus in position to tow it."
Hunter Legacy 12: Hero in Darkness Page 25
