"Are you joining us for dinner?" I asked her.
"Yes, of course."
"Well you'll hear the speeded up version of the last year then. You best hear that before I try to explain how I've changed."
"They told me you were a Duke and an Admiral. I couldn’t tell if they were joking or not."
"That’s part of it. And it's not a joke. Prophesy is real, and I'm the one."
She started crying.
I held her for a short while, until she managed to get control again.
She pushed me off, and pointed to one corner of the room, where I saw a crib. The baby I'd seen earlier was sleeping in it.
She took my hand, and pulled me over to the crib. All I could really see was a face, smiling happily, eyes closed.
"Jon, this is your son. His name is Michael."
Five
"Well say something!" said Sarah, after I’d stood there unmoving for what felt like several hours, but was probably only a minute.
I felt numb. It seemed like it was the day for shocks. In no way had I anticipated two major shocks immediately I returned home. Actually it was four now, with the Keepers announcement they knew nothing more than I did, and being shot at where I thought I should be safe.
I was looking down on a perfect baby boy, but I felt no sort of attachment to him at all. And I had no idea why not. Granted this was sprung on me without any warning. I hadn't known Sarah was pregnant. I hadn't even known she'd let herself be pregnant. But all the same, I should have been feeling something.
I looked up at Sarah, and she looked like she wanted to hit me.
I wanted to ask the "Are you sure he's mine?" question, but I was pretty sure the answer was yes, spoken after I had a black eye. Truth to tell, I saw no recognition of me in the baby's face, as he looked more like his mother than me. Probably better for him anyway.
I also wanted to ask her why she hadn't turned her medical monitor setting to prevent pregnancy, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear that answer. It was all too likely to have been "If you didn’t come back, I wanted something of you to survive", or something along those lines. I knew she knew about it, as we'd been in the same class the day it was taught in school.
I…
I sighed. Too many I's. I this. I that. Why had I made it all about me?
Wondering about how other men handled this situation wasn’t going to get me anywhere. It didn’t happen all too often these days, medical monitors and options working efficiently in the background. True, the tech here was somewhat out of date, but PC pregnancy prevention had been around a long time. The body overrides had come with PC disease transmission detection and neutralization, and these were included in teen PC models, which we were all taught how to use in school.
My mouth opened, me hoping something would come out which didn’t upset her, and she quickly put a finger over my lips.
"No, don’t say anything. The Keeper warned me you'd react like this, but I chose not to believe him."
"How would the Keeper know something like that?"
"I don’t know. But he knows a lot about too much, it seems sometimes. He turned up here yesterday, and told me you'd be arriving today, and how you'd react."
"I'm sorry about my reaction. I truly am. But too much has happened since I left. I'm not sure the boy who left is the one who returned."
"While you were in the medical facility, the Keeper told me you died. Did you?"
"Yes. I was dead for fifteen minutes."
"How can that be?"
I looked at her for a moment, deciding if I should say more.
"Kali brought me back. I couldn’t walk for a week after."
"Oh."
Her eyes were wide.
"Only now I'm beginning to think not all of me came back. I seem to have lost my connections to home."
"Oh Jonny," she said, and hugged me again.
"What do you want of me?" I asked her a few minutes later.
"I'd hoped once you came back, we could marry, and raise our son together."
She looked me in the eyes, and her face dropped.
"But," she went on, "I guess it can't happen, can it?"
"I'm leaving here in four days." I held her eyes with mine. "I don’t think I'm coming back."
"Can we come with you?"
"Are you crazy? Being with me is dangerous. You'll hear that over dinner. But what's worse, the Darkness is coming, whatever it is, and I'll be there. I have no illusions about surviving it. I won't take you and our baby into that sort of danger. Which reminds me."
"Of what?"
"Jane?"
"Yes Jon?" she answered through room coms.
"Protection for the family please."
"Already on the way."
"Bodyguards too."
"Confirmed."
"Who was that?" asked Sarah.
"Jane. My ship AI. You'll meet her avatar shortly. We better be getting to dinner, or they'll be wondering what we're doing."
She smiled at that. But my mind had gone off on a tangent, given who was waiting out there.
"Oh, there's something I need to tell you."
"You have a girlfriend."
She said it deadpan, obviously trying hard not to let any emotion show.
"Yes. I've had several. Sort of. But you need to understand something."
Her eyebrows went up.
"I'm a Mercenary now. We never know what tomorrow will bring, and today might be the last one we have."
"That is such a cliché."
"No, not really. I've been dead once, near dead several other times, and most of my team have been on the edge of death as well. We don’t do relationships. We live life as if each day was our last. I'm very close to some of the women around me. We do 'lovers' rather than relationships, and things change as situations change. It's complicated."
"Yes, I can see that on your social setting."
"Well, it is. Just so you know, Amanda and Aleesha are the twins you'll meet in a minute. We have a connection we don’t understand yet. They share all my dreams and visions. Aline could be called my girlfriend, and Miriam wants to be."
"And they're all here now?"
"Yes. I'm not sure why. My mother seems to know more than she should have. Keeper again most likely. Jane sent him the year's highlights, and it probably included my social life. But I guess we'll find out when we get back out there."
"I can't say I'm happy to find out you became a womanizer."
"I'm not. They all came on to me, same as you did. I've never initiated anything more than a reiki session in my life."
She blushed.
"Do you have Michael linked to your PC?"
"Yes, but the room sensors don’t tell me much."
"Jane?"
"Yes boss?"
"Can you monitor the baby fully at all times?"
"For as long as we are here. If you want a permanent arrangement, I'll need to leave a clone behind."
"Start working on ways to do that."
"Confirmed."
I took Sarah by the hand, and led her out.
Six
Conversation stopped as we took our places at the table, and all eyes followed us. My father was at the head of the table, with my Mother to his left. I was at the foot of the table, with Sarah to my left, and Aline to my right, with Miriam next to her. The twins were mingled in with relatives, around the middle of the table. David and his wife had turned up and were also somewhere in the middle.
Mouths opened to speak to me, but I managed to get in first.
"Anyone who calls me Dad, will be shot!"
"Jon!" exclaimed my mother and Grandma Violet together.
Just about everyone else laughed. Although I could see some annoyance in the eyes of both Aline and Miriam. The twins though, were grinning wildly.
"Bit hard to do that without a gun," said Cousin Fred, several years younger than me.
I drew one of my Gatling stunner's, and pointed it at the ceiling over his head
. He flinched. I put it away without saying anything. It vanished into my suit again.
"Neat trick," said Dad. "But is it really necessary to wear guns at the table?"
"Yes," echoed in the room, as all of us wearing them answered at once.
"Why?" asked Mum.
"Jon was shot after he left the Keeper today," said Amanda.
Most of my family looked shocked.
"Are you okay Jon?" asked Mum.
"I'm fine. Whoever it was has no idea about our level of tech. The pulse bounced off my suit without harming me."
"I was going to ask about that," started Grandma. "Is it really necessary to come to the table in military uniforms?"
I grinned at her, and glanced about the table doing rapid eyebrow raises. Those of us wearing suits, all shifted into civvies at the same time.
"I want to do that," shouted Fred.
The look on my father's face suggested he did too.
At that moment, the door opened and Jane entered, quickly followed by Jeeves, who had a grav trunk in tow, with a cat cage on top. The door closed, Jeeves opened the cat cage door, and Angel came out, jumping straight over onto the table, sliding all the way up to Miriam, before scrambling back to me, where she sat looking down the table at everyone.
"This is Angel," I said.
"Awe, how gorgeous," said Grandma.
Angel started purring, as I tickled her.
I introduced Jane and Jeeves to everyone, the latter going straight off to find the kitchen.
I nodded to Jane, and she began pulling belts out of the trunk. She put them down in front of all my family members, with two in front of Sarah. They all looked puzzled.
David explained what they were, and we helped them all put them on, and set them up.
"Are these really necessary?" my father asked.
Amanda looked at me expectantly, and I nodded.
"Yes sir," she answered him, "they are. The reality is, anyone who gets close to Jon enjoys his protection, but they also become a target. The closer they are to him, the bigger the target."
I noticed him taking in the command in her voice.
"Yesterday," added Aleesha in the same command voice, "you were all safe. Today, because someone fired missiles at us, and took a shot at Jon, you need as much protection as we can give you."
"Surely not," said Mum.
I sighed.
"Sorry," I said, "but it's true. Angel was taken hostage once, as was someone I was dating at the time. They had to jump out an airlock in space to escape. As well as the suits, you'll all have bodyguards with you. They will look like security people, but they are actually security droids wearing suits, controlled by Jane."
The door opened and a man walked in. He was wearing 'slinky red' with no insignia.
"Greetings all," he said with a smile.
His suit shifted to a belt, showing the droid underneath for a few seconds, and shifted back to a man. There were a few gasps of surprise. He waved and quickly left.
"Jane, did we get the new belts?"
"Yes, Zippy did a speed run to Hunter's Haven and just made it back. Angel is wearing her new cat version, and the one there in front of Sarah is a prototype baby version. The trunk also contains six modified air backpacks, which the baby's suit can connect to in an emergency, as well as Sarah's. Just an added precaution in case they are somewhere without close air ports."
"Baby version?" asked Sarah.
I nodded to her.
"I have a team of suit developers doing new civilian versions of the suits, while they figure out how to make them even more effective. The new civilian ones don’t offer the protection we need, but the aim is to give some protection at an affordable price. Useful for example if there's a shuttle accident, or a station hull breach, or even some sort of traffic accident dirtside. I'd also been asked to see if it was possible to do versions for cats and dogs which live on ships and stations. Which they have now done. Angel's been wearing a suit belt as a collar for a long time, but she now has a version designed specifically for cats. The baby version was an offshoot of this. It'll keep a toddler safe from just about any sort of harm, and is configurable by the parents. So a dog wouldn’t be able to inflict a wound if it bit a child, and the suit would stop major injury from a fall. They are still prototypes, but should be available soon. I'm not sure they'll be available before the Door closes though, so if you know anyone else who wants them, better tell Jane soon, so she can arrange production and delivery."
"So you're not just military," said Mum. "I'm glad."
"No Mum."
"He's Duke Jon as well," said Aline.
"And the dukedom requires income," added David.
"Just how did you become a Duke," asked Sarah.
I sighed, and was saved from answering as the food arrived. Once we'd all been served, I rose before anyone started eating, holding my glass up before me.
"Absent relatives and friends," I said somberly.
Everyone echoed me, but Fred and his mother were looking like they wished I hadn't reminded them of my uncle's death a year ago. I sat, and we began eating.
I caught Jane's eye, and nodded. As we ate, she presented highlights, and a few lowlights, of the year I'd had. She included some of the combat, and all of my promotion and award ceremonies. Odd looks were cast at me periodically, and there were gasps of shock in a number of places, notably when Gunbus spun into that Battleship. BigMother had recorded the whole thing, and I hadn't known it before now. Even I cringed when Gunbus crashed in.
Finally, as coffee was being enjoyed by most, Jane showed the Bridge of BigMother as we jumped through, and dealt with the missile attack. I was watching my Dad at this point, wanting to see his reaction to how I ran my Bridge. He frowned while I was talking to Melissa, but nodded to most of the orders I gave. Most of all though, I wondered how he was taking finding out I outranked him.
Seven
"So how many medals do you have?" asked Fred a little later.
"I've lost count," I answered politely.
Actually I had, but I wasn’t going to go counting them just because I was asked.
"Don’t be coy dear," said my mother.
"Does that suit do a dress uniform son?" asked my father.
Reluctantly, I shifted into my dress uniform. There were oohs and ahs from down the table, and I made a point to check my blush suppressor. The girls were all grinning at my discomfort, and outright laughed as Fred starting counting them. Amanda corrected him when he ignored the little badges denoting multiples. I let him reach a total, and shifted back to civvies.
My dad gave me a long serious look, nodded slightly, and went blank for a sec.
"We need to talk before you leave son," pinged in.
I nodded to him. We did need to talk, and he wasn’t going to like what I had to say. Although maybe he'd already guessed.
Jeeves arrived at that point with a cake, nineteen candles burning on top. He placed it in front of me while the room sang happy birthday at me off key. Off keys. The girls shouldn’t be giving up their day job I discovered. I smiled to myself as I discovered the twins were not totally identical after all. Their off key turned out to be slightly different.
Then again, happy birthday wasn’t a song best sung in tune. We just wished it was.
I blew out the candles, but kept my wish to myself. My sword appeared on my back and I drew it, much to the surprise of everyone, changed it to the size of a serving knife, and began cutting the cake into wedges. When there was one for everyone, I sheathed the sword. Fred's eyes were huge. Almost as big as the cake had been.
We were all soon indulging in one of the best black forest type cakes I could remember eating. There were multiple fruit layers, and they were thick ones. Just how I loved it. I caught a look passing from Aline and my mother and assumed the recipe had been passed along.
We'd hardly finished with the cake, and all of the girls went blank for a moment, and rose.
"General wants us," sa
id Amanda. She didn’t specify which one. "Sorry, but duty calls," she said to my parents, as they began to head for the door.
"Thanks for coming dears," she replied happily. "We'll see you again before you leave I'm sure."
The twins grinned at her, and I started wondering what they had planned. But they were gone before I could even get started.
The party began to break up, and I spent the next half hour kissing and hugging relatives as they left.
Finally, it was just the three of us. And then two, as my mother took herself off to bed.
I sat down again where I’d been, Angel settled in my lap after lapping up all the goodbye pats, and Dad did the same. We looked at each other. Neither of us said anything for a few minutes, until finally, my Dad sighed.
"You want Galactica don’t you?"
"Yes. I have Enterprise and Prometheus already."
"The Keeper said as much. But I knew a long time ago this might happen."
"You did?"
"It was obvious the moment the Keeper told us you were the one."
"When was that?"
"The day you left. We received word of the pirate attack soon after it happened, and the Keeper told us it was a sign. We wanted to bring you home but he wouldn’t allow it. He told us you would be back now, and when you arrived, we had to start serious preparations for Prophesy to manifest. I knew then Galactica would be needed."
I nodded seriously.
"Do you know what you want to do with the three of them?" he asked.
"Not yet. Enterprise is being stripped down at the moment. Prometheus is on her way up the spine. My shipyard is being added to so all three can be worked on at the same time, and not hold up other upgrades as well."
"I've given it a lot of thought. We've never had the facilities here to do anything except tech upgrades, and even then, she's well behind the times. But it was logical to assume someone nearby had a shipyard who could do a major overhaul. I just wasn’t expecting it to be you."
He grinned at me, and I grinned back.
"Spoils of war," I said enigmatically.
"Story for another day."
"Will the crew want to leave Gaia?"
Hunter Legacy 11: Home Is Where the Hero Is Page 3
