Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates
Page 22
"What are you up to Jon?" asked Walter, with a grin.
"What the hell is that?" interrupted Jedburgh, with wonder in his voice.
Jane popped up another screen, to show a ship. Not just any ship, but a very big ship.
"Ah," I said, "That’s my new Dreadnaught."
"Dreadnaught?" asked Hallington. "Looks like you cut two Battleships in half, and stuck them back together as one ship."
"We did," said Bob and I together.
I couldn’t help laugh at both Admiral's expressions, and most of the Bridge joined in.
"This currently unnamed ship," I went on, "used to be the two pirate Battleships we captured in Barnard's Star. We did indeed cut them both in half, then put them back together to give a four direction fighting pattern, instead of the normal two. It’s an experiment. There's a lot of internal changes as well. Looks like the external work is complete, but according to scan, not much else is."
Bob nodded to me. My guess was for now, Enterprise was getting the major attention, and the fusion of the Dreadnaught into a single ship had only just been completed. I looked at Bob again. He nodded with a grin. So he'd pulled it out of the bay just to show it off as we went by. I grinned back at him.
Battleships like the British Fleet's Repulse, were essentially two old style water navy Battleships, a few of which still existed, joined together at the keels, in a way which what used to be the keel became a central new deck. The normal configuration was to reverse the image, so if one end had three big turrets and the other end two, then both ends of the ship would have five big turrets. Cruisers tended to be built the same way.
On the Dreadnaught, we'd simply taken this a step further, so now we had the equivalent of four water style Battleships in a four way configuration, thus doubling the firepower of a normal Battleship. It wasn’t exactly using the imagination very much, but ship design had only changed markedly in some areas of the Sci-Fi sector, where imagination had given rise to different ways of living. The rest of Human kind, had remained relatively unimaginative. For now, it worked for me, but sometime in the future, I was going to have to spend some quality time outside the box. I had some ideas, but not yet the ability to create them.
Hallington, while technically a Carrier driver, appeared to be drooling.
"I want one," he said, looking not at Jedburgh, but at Patton. But it was Jedburgh who answered.
"When the shit hits the fan, write yourself orders attaching your Carrier group to whichever of Jon's fleets where it's the flagship."
"Really?"
"I'll sign off on it."
How to make your juniors very happy. The only thing was, if I had my way, the Dreadnaught wasn’t going to be the flagship. For now, it was simply an experiment. But I wasn’t telling them that, at least not yet.
"Whose going to captain her?" asked George, with stars in his eyes.
"Not you Commander," I laughed. "Not unless prophesy gives us enough years for you to get the experience you’d need first."
He subsided into his seat.
My eyes flickered to Annabelle's for a moment, and hers went wide with alarm, before getting her face quickly back under control. A Dreadnaught was definitely a two star command, just like a Battleship should be at least a one star command. If I gave her the Dreadnaught, she'd definitely be needing part of Homer's bridge crew, maybe all of them. I'd have to sound out how Jack felt about it. One way or another, it hadn't come up on the journey home.
About half way in to Outback Orbital, I sent Jane a course change by PC. It wasn’t a lot, but enough to make it clear the Orbital was not our destination. I received some strange looks, but no-one outright asked.
The internal timer I had running on my PC wound down to zero. We were late after all. If we hadn't needed to stop to pick up Eric, we would have been spot on time.
Immediately a green dot appeared on the nav map and HUD, directly in front of us, but a good way away.
"What the hell?" said Amanda. "Where did that ship come from?"
"What ship is that?" said Aleesha.
All eyes turned to me.
"Magnify," I said to Jane.
The pop-up showed a very familiar ship.
"How the hell did Enterprise get all the way out there?" asked George.
"She didn’t," I said. "Enterprise is in one of the Shipyard bays still under construction. Didn’t you see her there as we went past?"
George shook his head. He wasn’t the only one.
"Then what ship is that?" demanded BA.
I stood, walked to the console in front of me, and tickled Angel for a few seconds.
I turned and faced everyone.
"My friends," I said, and drew out a long pause.
"Behold, Galactica!"
Forty
"How?" asked Walter. "That ship disappeared centuries ago, thought lost with all hands."
I didn’t get a chance to answer him.
"Channel opening," said Jane.
"Overlay the HUD," I told her, turning, and taking a quick step back to be standing in front of my chair.
The screen which popped up showed an Explorer ship Bridge, identical to Enterprise's, only fully operational, with a full Bridge crew at their posts. They were all dressed in an antiquated uniform, which only Explorer crews had ever worn.
A man and woman stood in front of the Captain's chair, the woman being the only one in civvies.
There was a pause as both Bridge's people checked to see who was watching them.
"Welcome home, Admiral Hunter," said the man.
"Glad to be home, Captain Hunter," I replied.
Heads turned towards me in surprise, most especially the twins, Aline, and Miriam, but I ignored them.
"Happy standard birthday Jon," said the woman.
"Thanks Mum," I said.
The surprise around me became shock.
"The Keeper is waiting," said my father impatiently. "You're late. Are you coming?"
"Right behind you Dad."
Galactica was already turning, and we were gaining on her rapidly.
The channel closed.
I returned to my chair, and steadfastly refused to meet anyone's eyes.
"Jane, can you detect a jump point?"
"Confirmed."
"Damn it!" exclaimed Eric. "Now I know why you've never let anyone in here to check for jump points."
"Yes, and no, Eric. Had I let you in here while I was down spine, you still wouldn't have found it."
"Why not?"
"It’s a cyclical jump point."
"What's that?" asked Dick.
"I didn’t think there were any," said Slice. "At least, we’ve never found one."
"You've never known what to look for," I said. "Now you will. This jump point is only here for five days each standard year."
"You hid it using Outback's isolation policy?" demanded Walter.
"We did," said David. "It’s the best kept secret, ever."
"Jon," said Amanda. "We're at another Gate, aren't we?"
"Indeed. Fitting I think. A Gateway at each end of the spine."
"To where?"
Galactica jumped. We'd almost caught up with her.
I nodded to Jane, and a minute later we jumped.
The stars changed completely. Ahead of us was Galactica, heading towards a planet. The HUD updated with the new system as Jane received a data burst from Galactica.
The nav map shrank to a single system.
I turned to everyone again.
"Welcome to Gaia."
The Hunter Legacy began in a modest house in Australian suburbia, in 1969. Over more than 600 years, events shape the Galaxy Jon Hunter eventually finds himself in.
Thirteen doesn’t like Humans very much, but it falls to him to protect a Legacy, and to guide Destiny.
Here is some of the backstory, in this Interlude set of short stories, first begun with the release of 1969, bringing the backstory and events of Parts One and Two of The Hunter Legacy, into
focus for the beginning of Part Three.
The Long Road to Gaia.
The Hunter Legacy, Book Ten.
An interlude novel of short stories,
between Parts Two and Three
of The Hunter Legacy.
Jonathon Hunter
will return
in
Home is where the Hero is.
The Hunter Legacy, Book Eleven.
Sector Maps
Acknowledgements
Once again, a big thank you for Helen Ellis, my sounding board, ear that listens, and experience which talks.
Thanks also go to Elliott Webber, for the graphic design of BigMother, for the cover. Also thanks to Egosoft, for allowing me to use photos from their games, to make the cover of this book.
A Message to my Readers
I’ve had a lot of fun writing this novel. There is still a lot of story to come, and I invite you to come along for the full journey with me.
If you have enjoyed this novel, I hope you will take the time to leave a review on the Amazon site. All reviews are greatly appreciated, as they help assist purchasing decisions by other readers. Sales and reviews will help me to focus on the next book in the series, which impacts how fast the next installment is released.
Please join me on the series Facebook Page:
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Thank you.
Also by Timothy Ellis
These Kindle eBooks can be found on
Timothy Ellis’ Kindle Author page.
These links can also be found at TimothyEllisAuthor.com.
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The Hunter Legacy
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1969
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