Hail the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 5)

by Timothy Ellis

  I paid it, and asked for immediate delivery. I had a response straight away, indicating a half an hour before arrival. I pinged Annabelle she was getting a delivery in half an hour, and would need the team down at the main airlock to receive it. Jane began organizing cargo droids.

  I told her to move all the security droids out into a circle at maximum gun range as soon as the airlock opened. The combat droids were to be formed up in a V formation around the inside of the airlock, with just enough of a gap at the top of the V to allow entry of the delivery, and movement in and out. I also instructed her to take control of her twelve combat suits, and have them stationed at the airlock all the time it was open. This was to be a permanent arrangement for whenever we were docked.

  A screen popped up showing her existing suit running down the Cargo Bay towards the still closed airlock.

  I kept on with emails, until one stopped me. There was a bounty payment in from Earth sector on the four assassins who'd almost killed me.

  I stopped dead.

  I hadn't thought this before. But they had almost killed me this time. Only the intervention of a higher power had kept me alive. And not necessarily for me either, but because I was part of whatever they were up to. If it hadn't been for Kali, they would have killed me, in spite of the extra protection I was wearing.

  My mood darkened.

  I continued on until I was interrupted by the girls trooping in. Miriam smiled at me, but Alison, Amanda, and Aleesha looked serious.

  I put my pad down and sighed. They settled on chairs around me.

  Alison looked me in the eyes.

  "Okay Jon, spill it. What really happened to you?"

  I sighed again.

  Amanda's hand went to her gun.

  "I told you what happened," I said, before she could whack me on the foot again.

  "Who were you talking too," asked Amanda.

  "Them," I replied, indicating the two figures on the conference table.

  Actually now I looked at them, I could see they had moved back to the top end of the table on either side of the damage, where I’d found them originally.

  "And they are?" asked Aleesha.

  "Kali and Ganesha."

  Alison's eyes went wide, but the others didn't seem to know the names.

  "Who are they when they're at home?" asked Miriam.

  "Indian Deities. Kali the Destroyer, and Lord Ganesha. Two you don’t mess with."

  "Gods?" asked Amanda.

  "Same order of being, but I don’t use the 'g' word."

  "They can't be nice beings to put us through what they did," said Aleesha.

  I shrugged.

  "We each went through what we needed to, even if we don’t understand why we needed to experience it."

  "Pig's arse", said Amanda forcefully. "None of us needed to think you were dead for fifteen long minutes. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy."

  The others nodded.

  "I don’t know why they did it that way. They have the power to simply interrupt time. But they let time go on while we talked. I was brought up to believe that such things always have a reason." I looked at Amanda. "Maybe it was as simple as convincing you keeping your distance was a mistake."

  "Bullshit," she said.

  "Maybe so, but, how about this. We share dreams. Who do you think is most likely making that happen?"

  "Oh."

  "Yes. So maybe they want us close together to make the shared dreaming more reliable or something."

  Amanda looked troubled.

  "Sis," said Aleesha, "he could be right. We share this link for some reason."

  "Why did I have to go through it?" asked Alison.

  "You got too close to him," said Miriam.

  Alison looked shocked, and then guilty. I had wondered about that. She'd tried to initiate sex a lot more than I would have expected. Maybe sleeping together before the Avon battle had been a mistake, and after, she let herself feel more than was there.

  "Why me?" Miriam added.

  "You didn't go through what they did," I said.

  She looked about ready to explode at me.

  "You weren't there," I went on quickly. "For you, it was second hand until you got to me, and you arrived after I revived."

  She subsided. None of them looked happy.

  Alison and the twins went blank. Pings, I thought.

  "Annabelle wants us at the airlock," said Amanda. "Do you know why?"

  "Yes," I said, and grinned at her.

  "And?" said Aleesha.

  "Go and find out," I said to them.

  The three of them left without a word.

  Miriam sat there looking at me for a full minute. She rose, pecked me on the mouth, and left as well.

  I went back to emails, after pulling up a screen of the airlock opening, so I could watch the combat suits arriving.

  It wasn’t long before I knew I'd made BA's day.

  Twenty Two

  Just before nine, I materialized outside the meeting room. I say materialized, because I'd followed Darius, Chet, and Annabelle, in chameleon mode. They'd asked where I was, and been told I was already off the ship. This was technically true, since I was at the bottom of the ramp waiting for them.

  Once we arrived, I shifted back to 'swanky red', since they were in Dress uniforms. I startled them all, but they quickly laughed it off. We went in.

  There were five people already there.

  Admiral Bentley I knew. Beside her was Marshall Bigglesworth. The other three were General Patton, General Price, and to my surprise, General Harriman.

  He laughed at my surprised expression, came over, and shook hands.

  "You didn't expect to see me, did you?" he said.

  "No Walter, I didn’t. Does this mean my Liner is here somewhere?"

  "Yes Jon, it does. It's being moved to dock with your Carrier as we speak. I received the invitation to come a lot earlier than everyone else to enable me to get here in time. As it happens, your Liner is a lot faster than anyone knew, so I've actually had a mini vacation waiting for you all."

  Annabelle and I both grinned. He and Annabelle hugged.

  The other Generals came over and shook hands with me, and lastly, Marshal Bigglesworth shook my hand.

  He motioned for us all to take seats. The room appeared to be some sort of VIP lounge.

  The others sat, and watched me lower myself into a seat. A butler droid slid a pouffe under my leg as soon as I was down.

  Another put drinks beside each of us.

  "This is an informal gathering," said Bigglesworth, "before we get caught up in the official events. Since we've all been in contact during this crisis, I thought it a good idea to actually meet, and see if we can make this a regular event. For too long I think, the sectors have been too insular. As we found out the hard way, our sectors are vulnerable if we stand alone." Everyone nodded to this. "We may not be able to convince our governments of this, but among ourselves, we can keep up a dialog, so in future if something like this happens again, we know where we stand, and who to contact for help if we need it."

  "I agree with that assessment," said Price. "Sci-Fi sector was clearly unprepared for what happened to us, and without help, we would have fallen to the aggressors. We were lucky Admiral Hunter decided to help, and the British fleet arrived in time to bolster Avon's defenses. Without either, we were lost."

  "I agree also," said Patton. "The situation in Miami caught us completely unprepared, and demonstrated the sad truth that our mainstay ships are old, and out of date, just like some of our more junior flag officers have been trying to tell us for years." Chet went red. "I'm pushing for modernization, but I agree we need to have closer ties, in the event something like this happens again."

  "I also agree," said Harriman. "Without Admiral Hunter's forces, Midgard would have swept through our sector in a matter of weeks. Unfortunately, we suffered from a government unwilling to spend on defensive purposes, and when pirates took advantage of our weakness, we we
re reduced to relying on sheer luck to save us. Now we have a government obsessed with fear of threats, and while they have been spending to restore our forces, we still don't have a force that could have protected us from Midgard's. We'll be negotiating with Admiral Hunter for the contracting of his forces should the need arise. But they are his forces, not the Australian sectors. We need allies. I don’t for one second believe the pirate threat has been diminished significantly. It's simply been moved for now, as it periodically moves when one area makes an effort to remove them. They could decide to hit any one of us now we've been revealed to be vulnerable. We must stand together, even if our governments won't make it official."

  Jedburgh cleared his throat, and all eyes turned to him.

  "Chet and I are here because junior officers believed in a man who gave insane orders, and followed those orders, bullying their people into following those orders. The orders were only insane to the likes of us, who haven’t fought a major war in our lifetimes. Who haven’t thought beyond the established protocols for so long, we've forgotten the cardinal rule of war. Adapt or die. We built ships for a war against other sectors, while the real enemy is pirates and radical groups. We built and trained for a slug war between capital ships using laser weapons, and ignored what the little systems had developed. We learned to our cost that if you specialize too much, the enemy will throw at you what you can least respond to. We need to completely rethink war in our time, and start to restructure our fleets to cover all the bases."

  They all turned to me.

  "Age, wisdom, and beauty, before young wrecks," I said.

  They all laughed.

  Bigglesworth turned to Bentley.

  "I'm not sure why I'm here," she said.

  "You played a pivotal role in the conflict," said Price. "You all did. For too long the senior flag officers of all our sectors have been ignoring the two and one stars who have been telling us what reality is, instead of what we thought it was. The last major war was over a hundred years ago, and we've grown complacent. We fight brushfires here and there, but this is the first time for way too long that we faced a major threat. We came up wanting, and it cost too many lives all round. You're here," he made eye contact with Susan, Annabelle and Chet, "because the burden fell on you, and you carried it. So we want your thoughts."

  "I'm just a battlewagon driver," said Susan.

  Bigglesworth burst out laughing.

  "There's nothing 'just' about you Susan. Admiral Hunter delegated a lot of responsibility to you, for tactical fleet movements. You showed you do more than drive a ship. Why do you think I've been trying to promote you? We need your innate ability. For now, I'm content to leave you where you are. But you will be called on to use that second stripe of yours from now on. So talk to us."

  "Since you asked," she said, "I think the situation is worse than you all think. None of our sectors have the experienced officers needed to mount any form of major campaign. We triumphed this time because we fluked pooling our talent, and for once, practical reality biting our bollocks, dictated the sectors co-operate. Sheer luck, or maybe it was divine intervention, put the right people in the right places, at the right time. But it could just as easily have been a total disaster. I think we need to co-operate more openly in the future, to the extent that our senior officers train together. If something like this happens again, we need to be able to form a unified command, with the best officers across the sectors heading up each branch of the command. To do that, we need to know who they are, where they are, and have a means of getting them together rapidly. We also need to ensure that the resources necessary are not only available, but they also can get where they're needed rapidly."

  She ran out of breathe. Hallington continued.

  "We have the people," he began. "But some of our brightest are still junior officers. Two of my Commanders recognized what we needed after spending one day with then Captain Hunter. Being Lieutenant Commanders at the time, we didn’t listen to them enough. The cost was two Fleet Carriers out of commission, too many Cruisers destroyed, and too many lives lost. None of our Captains have any real combat experience. None of our ships, save the new ones, are capable of doing what their missions are. Between us, we lost two Admirals, and a lot of Captains. The Commanders survived because they have more battle skills than our more senior officers do." He indicated me. "The only thing any of us did right in this whole mess, was to listen to this man. Those who ignored him, died. We need to bring forward the best of our people to replace the dead wood driving our ships at the moment, and then train them all to work together."

  He stopped. There was silence.

  All eyes turned to Annabelle.

  For the first time I'd ever seen her, I thought she looked scared. I saw her get a grip. As junior officer in this company, and only recently promoted to flag rank, talking to this group as an equal was obviously daunting to her, where nothing else was.

  "I left the Australian Militia," she said, "precisely for the reasons outlined here today. I joined Jon when I saw he had the makings of a first class General. Even when he's reacting to something unexpected, he thinks ten moves into the future. He plans when others are partying. I've watched him wrestle with things so far outside his training and understanding, and every single time he came to the right conclusion, and made the right decision. With the exception of General Harriman, Australian sector has no talented officers. Those of us who are, were effectively bullied out. A lot of it was politically based, by a government who didn't want to hear about threats and inadequacies. Our current government, while trumpeting the threats, are actually worse than the previous one as far as addressing the problems are concerned. I've travelled extensively in the last few years. Much of all our best talent are now Mercs, or as said, junior officers. I've gathered the best of the ex-Australian infantry teams to me, and I regretted not centralizing us, since we needed them all with us over the last week. We let them go, and we paid the price for doing so. Not just my teams, now spread along the spine, but all the real talent from all our sectors. We need to repair the damage."

  She ran out of steam, and they all turned to me.

  "This was a wakeup call," I said. "Something big is coming. You were all tested. You know what the problems are. The governments will never do what we need them to. It's up to you to deal with the issues, repair the damage of a century, and prepare your sectors for the real threat."

  "Ragnarok?" suggested Jedburgh.

  "Two isolationist cultures, mine and Midgard's, have prophesy of the end of the world. Both seem to be saying it's very close now. One of them sought to prevent it in a way most would consider to be the madness response. The other sent me to deal with them."

  "Sent you?" asked Price.

  "Why else would I be here? At home I'm sixteen years old, and not considered an adult yet. But I was brought up with prophesy from the moment I had my first nightmare about the coming darkness, which is the first sign. I was encouraged to build computers and simulators when other kids were playing ball. They didn’t dissuaded me from playing combat games, and studying military history. I wasn’t aware of it, but now it seems fairly obvious. I was identified by prophesy at an early age, and trained without obviously being trained. I can't say for sure, but it feels like I was sent. As if those who know prophesy, knew I had to be out here now. Otherwise, why was I even allowed to leave home two full years early? It never occurred to me at the time, because I was so happy to get my first trip out system. It's only been two months, but I feel like I've aged ten years."

  "Not aged," said Annabelle, "but you perform at the level of a twenty year veteran."

  The others agreed with her assessment.

  "So what are you saying?" asked Bigglesworth.

  "I'm saying, this was a warning. When the real threat comes, we have to be ready, or nothing will survive. If we don’t combine our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses, we will be lost."

  "Any idea what the threat is?" asked Hallington.


  "The Keepers call it the darkness. My nightmares begin with a single black dot, which becomes millions, and blots out the stars. Who or what it is, I've no idea. I'm not sure if the Keepers even know."

  "Timing?" asked Harriman.

  "Not this year, but I don’t feel like it's more than ten. I may know more in ten months' time."

  "Why ten months?" asked Bentley.

  "Outback has an isolationist policy, which is relaxed for only five days each Earth year. I'm here because I was in hospital when that five day window last expired. I have to wait another ten months to go home, before I can confront the Keepers about prophesy."

  "Wont they communicate before then?" asked Price.

  "No. All coms equipment is turned off. Any attempt to land on the planet is met with force. We take our isolation seriously."

  "I want to be there when you go home," said Harriman.

  The four stars looked at each other for a moment.

  "Jon," said Jedburgh, "Each sector will be sending a representative with you, unless you object."

  "I won't object, but the Keepers aren’t going to talk too just anyone. Or even let them listen. Whoever goes will need to be trustworthy and discreet. And even that may not be enough. Depending on how much they know, anyone who hears the full prophesy may need to be able to cope with some big shock, and be capable of knowing how much to tell others. We may find out, but be sworn to silence. The Keepers are a downright secretive bunch."

  "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."