Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates

by Timothy Ellis

  I sat there, doing the math again, hoping like hell I’d not made a mistake.

  "Now that’s interesting," said Jane, completely breaking my train of thought.

  "What is?"

  "The Battleship in War just did the hit-a-roid jiggle again, and its Id icon just vanished from the nav map."

  "They destroyed themselves?"

  "Looks like it."

  "Good. One thing less we have to worry about now."

  "Go to bed grump."

  "Don't start!"

  "Jon, there is nothing at all you can do now. We did the math. As long as nothing slows us down, we'll be there when the Door opens. Go to bed!"

  I sighed. She was right, as usual.

  Aline and Angel were already asleep when I tromped into my bedroom. I didn’t disturb either of them as I changed into boxers and t-shirt, slipped into my side of the bed, gave Angel a quick pat, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  Twenty Seven

  I dreamed I was walking down a long corridor. The way ahead was dark. The doors to either side locked. As I walked, a light came on behind me, throwing my shadow large in front of me. I walked on. As the shadow would fade, a new light would come on behind me, and my shadow would become bold again, always in front. On and on, into the dark. Without end.

  Jane had me back on the Bridge at five in the morning, strangely alone for once. The shuttle of prisoners going to Libya Orbital rose from the Flight Deck, powered towards the rear entrance, and was left behind.

  Jessie Ball had said her goodbye's the night before. She was ready to launch, as soon as I slowed down enough to make it safe.

  Don’t slow.

  "Why not?"

  Jessie Ball's life is now linked to The Darkness.

  "What does that mean?"

  She remains with you until Outback.

  "I think her boss will have something to say about that."

  He will not object.

  "I'll take your word for that."

  As you should.

  I opened a channel to Tag'Em.

  "Yes Admiral?"

  "You can stand down Jessie. I've been commanded to take you to Outback with us."

  "Commanded? I've not heard from the boss at all. You have?"

  "Not as such. Kali just told me you were coming all the way with us."

  "For real?"

  "As real as it gets."

  "YES!"

  "I'll square it with your boss, don’t worry about that."

  "Better you than me. Well then, I'm off back to bed."

  The channel closed. I could see she was confused underneath all that happiness, but so was I. I guess we'd find out what Kali wanted when we found out.

  I opened a vid to John Slice, bluntly told him Kali had commanded Jessie Ball to come with us to Outback, and did he have a problem with that? I sent it off, and sat there, alone on the Bridge, just watching space move around us.

  The answer came back about an hour later.

  John Slice laughed at me for a full minute, before getting a grip.

  "Really Jon? I knew the moment you asked for my help, whoever I sent would be tied to you, possibly for good. Jessie is good people. If you need her to stay with you, who am I to say no? I sent a replacement towards Columbia within an hour of redirecting her to you. I'll be waiting for you at the jump in to Apricot, in my own Lightning. Just scoop me up as you come through. See you soon."

  Soon was still a couple of weeks away, but I knew what he meant.

  The next few jumps looked easy ones, with no traffic expected near the jump points, so I told Jane to call me only if the jump points looked cluttered, or something big was there.

  I spent some time thinking ahead, and giving Jane some instructions for her and Amy. The first conference had gone badly, but I wasn’t going to let it upset me. We needed to meet with people, get the word out, and get people at least thinking about possibilities. It was just a matter of organizing whatever we could. I could leave it to Amy and Jane.

  I went back to bed, as Aline was getting up. Angel was busy eating breakfast, but I didn't feel like it. I dropped off back to sleep.

  I walked the passageway once again. Ahead was light. Behind was dark. The light receded from me, as the dark seemed to be catching me up. Something hit me from the side, and I went down. The dark caught up with me, and swallowed me.

  I woke up on the floor, my left side throbbing. Crawling back into bed, I lay there thinking about what it was I thought I was doing.

  How does one person get to take on the safety of an entire species? How could one person cope with the pressure and expectations of such a burden? Why was it me?

  Sleep took me again without any answers.

  Twenty Eight

  From Libya, we blew through Egypt and Nepal. A large Shuttle was waiting at the jump point inside Delhi, and we swallowed it almost in the process of down jumping. The pilot made a hash of landing on the Flight Deck, but although the passengers were shaken, none were injured, and after it was docked in one of the internal Flight Deck bays, the ship was quickly fixed by Jane. Amy updated her instructions to ensure ships wanting to be picked up by us as we passed through, should leave a reasonable distance from jump points to avoid accidents, and be prepared for a landing on a moving deck.

  Given BigMother's accommodations were now being stretched to the limit, Jane had prepared the accommodation on Unassailable for delegations. We had suites for brass and diplomats, but the functionaries with them would have to use the Marine barracks. If that overflowed at any time, they'd have to sleep on their shuttles.

  These first delegates to the next conference represented the Indian sector. We'd had a response from Nepal, indicating they were currently on good terms with the Indian sector, and would receive a briefing from them after the conference. Since they had nothing more than a token militia force for planet policing, their presence wasn’t really required. While they were an independent state of sorts, the most they could do if the Darkness came this way was evacuate.

  Over the next day or so, we collected Chinese sector delegates in Beijing, Japanese delegates in Nippon, and Russian delegates in Moscow. All were using large shuttles.

  The conference seemed to go off reasonably well, although each group kept to themselves. Jane provided real time interpreting into their native languages, and ensured those of us English speakers heard a precise interpretation when anyone used a different language. While our PC's had interpreter functions, Jane could do it quicker, and ensured everyone received the exact same words.

  I'd never figured out if the Latin sector's antipathy to the whole concept of Prophesy was based on anything in their own past, or if it was simply because the African Admiral had been so dead set negative about the idea.

  We didn’t have the same problem this time. While none of the delegates openly accepted Prophesy as a motivating factor for future planning, they were at least neutral going in. It wasn’t until we displayed detailed scans of the planet Moscow taken by Melissa in the future, before any real reaction occurred. The Russian delegates were profoundly disturbed by what they saw. We emphasized that every planet looked like this in the future.

  The Japanese Ambassador argued time travel with me like a true Science Fiction fan. By the time everyone else was glazed over and fidgeting, he announced himself satisfied we had indeed time travelled forwards, and experienced a possible future. He wasn’t prepared to gamble the lives of his people on it being an alternative future, or not. I'm not sure anyone else there at the time had any clue what 'alternate' actually meant, but they were swayed by his certainty we had time travelled.

  Between the Russian reaction, and the acceptance of the Japanese of Prophecy being possible, the meeting moved on from speculation to courses of action. The most important thing for each of their sectors was they only had a single system on the spine. This meant that they needed response forces able to move to whichever jump point any threat came from. While they may have support
from forces falling back, they had to assume they would have to take the brunt of any attack themselves, at least initially.

  Regardless of if it was an Invasion or a Celestial event, they also needed to be ready to move as many people as possible away from the threat. If it was coming up or down the spine, they needed to be able to clear their sectors of as many people as possible, before their spine system was lost.

  The Chinese delegate was curious as to how they could possibly get enough warning to be able to do so? I had Jane show them the nav map we used, so they could see we had the entire arm under a measure of observation. When we started losing feed from systems, we would know immediately where the threat was coming from, and I assured them the word would go out as soon as we knew. The Japanese Admiral looked at me with a speculative look, and I could see the gears going around in his head as he wondered how to get the specs for the comnavsats. To forestall any problems in that direction, I made the specs available to them.

  I did wonder how long it would take the media to find out the new sats existed, now the cat was effectively out of the bag, and I had no illusions the new sats would be pressed into service as soon as each of the sectors could build them, for their own internal uses. Although I doubted the media would gain access to sector sats. More than likely the sat specs would be stolen or sold, and the bigger media groups would start laying their own sat chains.

  Mine was effectively encrypted, and anyone trying to break into a comnavsat belonging to me was in for a rude surprise. But now I wondered how long it would be before the communications breakthroughs would be available along the entire arm. Almost real-time communications across sectors was a dream for the media types, now actually available, and probably not going to remain unknown to them for long now.

  Ah well, it had to happen sooner or later.

  I also gave them the specs for station tugs.

  While there was no agreement between the sectors for joint operations or plans, they all proved reasonably receptive. Before leaving the ship, they all issued media statements they were also following the high spine sectors in dusting off emergency plans for sector defense and extinction level event evacuations.

  Before leaving, I had a long conversation with the Chinese Admiral about Feng Shui in space. Feng Shui had long been returned to accepted status in Chinese society, and while not used by the general population any more than those in other sectors, it did still have more practicing Masters than any other sector. I was surprised to learn the Admiral's father was one such Master, and even more surprised to learn he followed the same yang methods we had at home.

  While he wasn’t a master himself, we both knew enough to have a decent conversation. The Admiral was most interested in my view of how to align a spaceship with the planetary directions, given it could travel in any direction possible. We found we agreed that no matter which way the ship was pointed, the front of the ship was South, given South represented the view into the future, among other things. This defined the back of the ship as North, right middle was West, and left middle was East. As I'd done all my own bed alignments and such based on this, without having had anyone to consult to confirm I was right, I was happy to have someone agree with me.

  Also before leaving, I had a quick conversation with the Indian Ambassador and Admiral about Kali's role in all this. They were both shocked and impressed to see the vid we had of the two statues appearing on my Ready Room table, and later, the statues moving from where I had rearranged them to, back to where they appeared; and the table being repaired at the same time. They were much more shocked when my sword appeared on my back, and vanished again a minute later. I explained Kali's scepter to them, and their whole attitude towards me changed from cool and diplomatic, to fawning, the Ambassador calling me Guru-G. It took a moment to remember I’d been called this before.

  The delegates left before we were through the Moscow system. It would take the Indians several days to get home.

  The Japanese were the last to leave. I'd looked up their fleet composition and found they had standardized on Corvettes. The mainstay was the Centaur I'd based the Gunbus design on, although they called it something different in their own language. I gave the Japanese Admiral a tour of Gunbus, pointing out where the Centaur was weak and how it was adjusted in Gunbus.

  Back where the Ambassador was waiting, there was a furious exchange of Japanese, as the Admiral updated the Ambassador, and seemed to be demanding something. It resulted in my being asked for the specification for Gunbus to be built under license, including the upgrading of existing ships as far as possible given the hull was smaller. I told them what the Americans were paying, and provided them the drop account details. Before they boarded their shuttle, Jane presented them with a small external storage device with the specifications on it. Both Ambassador and Admiral gave me deep bows from the top of the stairs, before turning into the airlock.

  I watched them on a pop up screen, undocking, moving to the middle of the Flight Deck, and disappearing out the back as we powered away.

  Before I’d reached the Bridge, there was an email notification for the full value of twenty four Gunbus licenses, with the partial license fees for the upgrade of forty eight Centaurs.

  The whole meeting had gone well, and had been profitable as well.

  We hadn't as much as slowed down in the slightest, the whole time.

  Twenty Nine

  I dreamt I was sitting in the sun, with a fluffy white cat asleep on my lap.

  It was a fine day. All was contentment and serenity.

  Until a black and white cat came along.

  It jumped up onto the white cat, waking it up, and both became feral fighting machines. On my lap!

  Claws dug in, and I screamed, and flung them both off me. They hardly noticed, and continued fighting. I tried to separate them, but only succeeded in getting scratched and bitten.

  The moon crossed the sun in eclipse, and daylight began to fade. The fighting stopped. Everything stopped. Darkness.

  When the eclipse ended and light returned, there were no cats.

  I awoke feeling very disturbed. I had scratch and bite marks on my arms. Angel looked at them, and gave me 'the look', the one which means what have you been doing with other cats, and serve you right. She jumped off in search of breakfast. Aline kissed my injuries better, but I still needed the Medical Bay. The doc on duty didn’t ask. I skipped training and breakfast, and took myself to the Bridge, where I found I'd made the news again.

  HUNTER ON THE RUN, was the headline.

  "Jon Hunter, self-styled Duke of the Duchy of 'Hunter's Run', which now includes sectors at each end of the spine, plus several in the middle; is currently making an attempt on the speed record from one end of the spine to the other. The current record is sixty four systems in thirty five days. We understand Hunter is attempting the same number in under nineteen days, which is not only unheard of, but is widely regarded as reckless and impossible."

  "His ship, which looks like a giant pregnant cat on steroids, is touted as the second fastest ship around, in spite of its size. It's the second biggest ship, in terms of mass, on record, after the old Explorer ship Enterprise, itself on a very slow trip up the spine to Hunter's home shipyard."

  "It is said that Hunter himself has explicitly said he is stopping for nothing. To date we are only aware of some minor collisions with ships as he was heading down the spine a few weeks ago. But as he nears the core Earth sector worlds heading back up the spine at previously unheard of speeds, people are urged to give way. Eccentric he may be, but his ship masses more than an American Fleet Carrier, and as is the custom, fail to give way to the larger ship at your peril."

  I sat back, and had a very good laugh.

  Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark all sent me requests for information as we blew past. Amy by this time had prepared data packages to send anyone asking, which included the Russian representatives reactions, and the Japanese Ambassador's proclamation about our time travel. Like
Nepal, none of them had more than planetary police, and we urged them to develop evacuation plans. What we sent included the specs for the station tugs, and the recommendation their stations should be capable of housing their entire populations, with plenty of shuttle capacity for moving people off-surface should it become necessary to move in a hurry. None of these worlds were particularly heavily populated, but all the same, their existing stations were not up to the task of housing everyone on the ground.

  HUNTER BECOMES BIG BROTHER.

  "A leak from within a core system sector government has revealed that self-styled Duke Hunter has satellites in every system, monitoring the traffic flow of ships through the entire known space. This follows an unconfirmed report the Australian sector has been using the system to track and capture known pirates, criminals, and terrorists, as they try to enter or flee the sector. While unconfirmed, it can be confirmed that the arrest rate in the Australian sector has skyrocketed since Hunter made his appearance less than a year ago. The Australian Militia refused to comment."

  "If reports are true, it partly explains how Hunter is so confident in his ability to travel rapidly along the spine. If he can truly see what is on the other side of a jump point, he is able to adjust his speed to ensure there are no collisions. It also explains the destruction of three ships several weeks ago, now thought to have been pirate vessels, and the disappearance of a fourth, subsequently claimed by Hunter as a pirate capture. With advance knowledge of their positions, Hunter's forces would have been prepared for them well in advance of any combat."

  "It remains to be seen what other advantages this satellite network gives Hunter. While the satellites themselves are confirmed, and appear to be identical to the ordinary communication satellites, no-one has been able to access one to determine further capabilities."