Hunter Legacy 11: Home Is Where the Hero Is

by Timothy Ellis

  "Not yet," said the Keeper. "But you will."

  "All we see are stars," said one of the other councilors, until now silent. "Why should we trust him to give orders to even what paramilitary forces we have, let alone us?"

  The Keeper looked at me.

  "Admiral, will you please show them your dress uniform."

  I sighed, but shifted my suit.

  There were shocked exclamations from half the councilors, but there were also several grins.

  "Does anyone recognize the top two ribbons on this man's chest?" asked the Keeper.

  The American Indian smiled.

  "Is that the Medal of Honour?" he asked.

  "It is," replied the Keeper.

  "And the Victoria Cross," said the Aborigine.

  "Yes."

  "And the others?" asked far left.

  "Gallantry awards from five different Space Forces."

  They took this in silently, and I shifted back to 'slinky red'.

  "The Admiral is modest," said someone on the left side. "What do you need from us?"

  I shot a glance at the Keeper, and he motioned me to answer.

  "Not a lot, but each one is a biggie."

  "How big?" asked someone from the right side.

  "Galactica. She will be leaving with me in three days' time to be refitted along with her two sister ships."

  "You salvaged the other two?"

  "Yes. All three have a part to play in what is coming."

  "What else?" asked the American Indian man.

  "You will need to release Captain Hunter to stay with his ship. He will need retraining while his ship is being refitted."

  I paused, but saw no opposition, so I went on.

  "Gaia is what she was always meant to be. The last refuge of the Human race. You need to prepare for refugees."

  "Not everyone is going to agree to that," muttered objectionable.

  "It isn’t an option," stated the Keeper. "The higher powers built this system for the human race, not just for those few who colonized it when it was discovered."

  "We can argue that until the cows come home. Many of my people will not accept our paradise being overrun by anyone, refugees or otherwise."

  "Presumably," I said, "those are the ones who fired missiles at my ship when I arrived, and took a shot at me yesterday?"

  "Those would be the ones, yes."

  There were several looks of horror on faces now, which I found encouraging. It had never occurred to me that the spiritual society I came from would reject refugees. Not even that some of them would. If I’d needed something to sober me up, this would have done it. Alas, even spiritual communities have selfish people who won't consider the greater good.

  I looked objectionable in the eyes.

  "You will please pass onto them the following. They will cease any activity against Prophesy. As of now, they are forgiven for the previous attacks. Any future attack will be met with force. The penalty at the least will be expulsion from Gaia. We will identify anyone taking action against Prophesy, and we will deal with them. Make this clear please. My crew are professionals. The fighter squadrons are elite. The Marines are the most deadly you will ever come across. You do NOT want to mess with us. We will shoot first, and forgive after."

  Objectionable flinched. I went on.

  "Make no mistake. I may be only nineteen standard years old, but I head the most heavily armed mercenary unit ever. We crushed all pirate activity along the spine. We will be there when the Darkness arrives. Anyone who messes with Prophesy, messes with me. I am spiritual, but it's been a long hard year, and I've had to learn how to merge spiritual and warrior together. Don’t try me."

  "Warrior of God," said one of the men who hadn't said anything at all so far. "Keeper, you didn’t tell us this."

  The Keeper grinned.

  "Would you have believed it?"

  "I guess not."

  "Do you believe now?"

  The man looked at me.

  "Are you THE warrior of God, foretold in other prophecies?"

  My eyes sought his, and he shivered.

  "Not as far as I know," I said. "I don’t use the G word anyway. But I am a warrior, and I remain spiritual. And people have been following me for a while now."

  "What else do you require of us?" asked the Aboriginal woman.

  I told them.

  Eleven

  "I thought that went well," said the Keeper once we were back in his office.

  I had my doubts myself, so I just gave him the look. The one that says 'yeah right'. I changed the subject.

  "Before I forget, who designed the new Hub joined to the station?"

  "My idea, but fully executed by the local shipyard manager. Not that you’d really call it a shipyard, since it doesn’t actually make many ships. It's more of a repair yard."

  "And yet it produced the Hub."

  "Yes. Let me ask you a question. How many stations do you think are coming here?"

  "I've no idea."

  "Gut instinct?"

  "Hundreds."

  "Exactly. So stage one is a method of connecting stations of different sizes safely. Allows us to make stations all belonging to the same sector, or grouping, join together to make a single entity they can administer for themselves."

  "And stage two?"

  "We design a rapid transit system to overlay the whole structure. That part is still on the drawing board."

  "Where will you put them?"

  "We don’t know yet. They could be strung in a ring around each planet, sort of like the Earth Torus. Or they could be grouped and given a fixed position in the system to occupy."

  "Or both, and we let each station decide for themselves."

  "Or we let each station decide for themselves. I'm pretty sure some of them will want to isolate themselves, and others we will want to isolate. The council will need to make that determination."

  "Are they up to it?"

  He laughed.

  "We have time to see if they are."

  "Time? Do you know when the Darkness is coming?"

  "Sorry no. I didn’t mean to imply that. I told you, I know only what you do."

  "I find that hard to believe."

  "Of course you do. I seem to know too much for me not to know more. But I assure you, I don’t."

  I sighed.

  "It's put your prophecy where your mouth is time," I told him.

  He sighed.

  "You really want to know?"

  "Yes."

  "You are not going to like it."

  "You already told me that."

  He looked at me hard for a long moment.

  "Jon, take my advice and walk out of this room now. You have enough to convince the council, to plan for the future, and fulfil your legacy."

  "Legacy? Explain."

  "The Hunter Legacy. I've studied every record there is about your family. It began in the nineteen hundreds with a boy named Jonathon Hunter, who at the age of ten was convinced he was taking his family into space. Over six hundred and fifty years later, having crossed half of space along this arm of the galaxy, and against all the odds, this legendary family produces you. You are the legacy of a family which rightly should have died out a long time ago. And yet, the legacy continues. You are the one who must save mankind. Or at least, some of them. That will be your legacy. Making sure the Human race continues."

  "How do you know all of this?"

  "I'm the Keeper. It's my job. It's my life. A keeper has been close to every member of your family since they first left Earth. All the sacrifice of our order over the centuries has brought you here to me, now."

  "And you want me to walk away?"

  "Yes."

  I looked at him as if he was mad.

  "No."

  "As you wish."

  He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a pad. He dropped it neatly in front of me.

  "Read," he commanded.

  I picked it up, and read.

  The bulkhea
d rushed at me. For a few seconds I was floating. An idle thought - bulkheads were not supposed to do that. It smashed into me. Or more correctly, I smashed into it. For a few seconds I hung there. My left side was on fire. The bulkhead moved away. For a few seconds more I hung there, arching slowly over backwards, uncontrollably in free fall. Gravity reasserted itself and I fell to the deck. I lay there in agony. Thankfulness for carpet on the deck did not come until later.

  I looked up at him.

  "What the fuck is this?"

  Twelve

  He smiled at me, the sort of smug smile you automatically want to hit. I restrained my annoyance. For the moment.

  "Don’t you recognize it?" he said.

  "It's a description of the moment the missiles hit Wanderer, a year ago yesterday."

  "Yes. And?"

  I felt sick all of a sudden. I suddenly knew. I looked at him for confirmation. He nodded.

  "It's as if I wrote a diary of the event," I whispered.

  "Exactly."

  I read on, with increasing horror.

  "How is this possible?" I asked him finally.

  "Scroll back."

  I did so. Now I noticed the big 'One' at the top of the first page. I scrolled back further, through a list of chapter numbers. Then I read …

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are fictional and have no relationship to any real person, place or event. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

  "Huh?"

  "Back further."

  Hero at Large

  By Timothy Ellis

  The Hunter Legacy, Book One

  "Read the date."

  I flipped the page.

  Copyright © 2014 by Timothy Ellis

  "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?" I yelled at him.

  The door opened, and Jane poked her head in. Seeing me in distress, she came in.

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  "THIS!"

  I waved the pad at her.

  "Which this is that?" she said with a laugh.

  I threw the pad at her. She caught it nimbly, and glanced at it. She did a double take, and started scrolling pages rapidly.

  "Holy shit!" she said, still reading at the speed of, …, at speed.

  I was losing it. I could feel all rationality slipping away.

  Jane stopped abruptly and tapped a couple of times.

  "Oh my giddy aunt!"

  "What?" I demanded.

  She ignored me, tapped again, and began scrolling rapidly again. Her eyes flicked to me several times, before she finally stopped, and tapped once again.

  "WHAT?"

  Even I could hear the hysteria in my voice.

  She showed me the index of the pad.

  The first entry said 'Hero at Large'.

  There were nine more of them, ending with 'Hero at the Gates'.

  "Ten books?" I croaked.

  Jane nodded.

  "Nine books, and one short story."

  "All written like I wrote a diary?"

  She nodded again.

  "How long?"

  "They cover the last year, up until the moment we jumped into Gaia."

  "How?" I screamed.

  The Keeper flinched. Jane looked at me calmly.

  "It seems the last year of your life was written as a series of novels by someone named Timothy Ellis, beginning in the year two thousand and fourteen."

  "WHAT THE FUCK?"

  The words echoed as a high pitched screech, and I could hear running boots coming towards the office. But suddenly I was dizzy and finding it hard to get a breath in.

  Everything went black.

  Thirteen

  "Welcome back sunshine," said Carter.

  I looked around, and yes, I was back in station medical.

  "What happened?"

  "You fainted."

  Memory rushed in.

  "FUCK."

  "Jon, calm down. Your blood pressure is dangerously high."

  I ignored her.

  "Where's the Keeper?" I demanded.

  "In the next room. But you're in no state for visitors."

  "Get him in here. Now."

  "No."

  I looked at her. Every book and series where the good doctor could tell the captain what to do in a medical crisis, came to mind all at once. Now I knew what they all felt, being given orders on their own ship. Bullshit. I got a grip.

  "Doc?"

  "Yes?"

  "Get him in here. Now."

  "No."

  I pinged Amanda to frog-march the Keeper in here if she had to, but get him here immediately.

  The door opened, and the Keeper walked in.

  "Out," said Carter, to the Keeper.

  "Out," I said to her.

  We locked eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. She took a look at the monitors, and quietly left, closing the door behind her.

  He came over to the bed I was lying on, and stood there looking down at me.

  "YOU. KNEW."

  I paused to see if he would react. He didn’t.

  "DIDN’T. YOU."

  "Yes."

  "You let me go to my death and back again when you could have stopped it."

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Isn't that obvious?"

  "Join the dots."

  He pulled a chair over and sat down next to me.

  "A lot of what was once known is lost, and some of what I think is only conjecture based on what we have. But it goes like this. In 2014, a man named Timothy Ellis began writing a series of novels he called The Hunter Destiny. We know of only eight full novels, one novella, and a short story. We suspect there were more, because the last one mentions books ten and eleven, but if they were ever written, they haven’t survived time."

  "And?"

  "We're not sure. Someone found the series early on, and not only loved the story, but came to the conclusion it was all true. Why, we don’t know, same as we don’t know why the books were written in the first place. By the time Galactica left orbit, the first group of Keepers were on board, they considered the books to be Prophesy, and they were almost fanatical about keeping the series safe for the future."

  "Why didn’t they know when all this was supposed to happen if they had something they thought was true?"

  "Good question. None of the books contain any date reference of any kind."

  "Figures."

  "Indeed. And it gets worse. We know there was an accident on Galactica which killed all the Keepers. Anything they knew and had been passing down verbally to each new Keeper, was lost with them. A new Keeper started the order up again, and has successfully brought us the books across the centuries, but as I said, all we know is what you know, because you lived it."

  "What do we know about this author bozo?"

  "Not much. He was spiritual, and in poor health at the time of writing the series. You should actually recognize the name."

  "Should I?"

  "He wrote 'The Wisdom of the Ages, Accrued Karma', and several other books your people used to teach you spiritual concepts."

  "Fuck."

  The name hadn't rung any bells. I wondered why.

  "How spiritual was he?"

  "Very, apparently, although his awakening happened later in life."

  "He channeled?"

  "We have to assume so, don’t we?"

  "Who?"

  "Could have been any of the higher ups. You visited them several times. At a guess I’d say Kali, or perhaps Sariel."

  "Why make prophecy this way?"

  "You tell me and we'll both know."

  We went silent for several minutes, as my thoughts went crazy with speculations.

  "Are you okay?" the Keeper asked me.

  "Why wouldn’t I be?"

  "You're the one lying on a bed with high blood pressure."

  I sighed.

  "Who else knows?"

  "Ah. Officially, only me, and now yo
u, and Jane."

  "And unofficially?"

  "I let slip a few things over the course of the year to your parents, to keep them from worrying too much. It was in strict confidence, and I'm very sure they told no-one."

  I sighed again.

  "Please tell me they didn’t read about me in my bedroom."

  "They didn’t read about your sexual antics, no. But I did tell them you had girlfriends and was living life to the fullest."

  Which explained my mother taking Aline and Miriam aside when we arrived. She'd have picked them out on the ramp, just from how they looked at me. Even if she didn’t know their names, their names and ranks were freely available on their social profiles, and even Mum would know to check those, even if no-one had ever told me about social settings. I guess that was down to me. I'd never been much for social interaction outside school.

  The Keeper was grinning at me. I still wanted to hit him, but I was calming down now.

  "I'm going to try and forget you did."

  "Good plan."

  "What do we do now?"

  "You need to eat something, before the big meeting this afternoon."

  "I'm not telling anyone Prophesy was a series of novels."

  "No, best not to."

  "It stays between you, me, and Jane."

  "Yes."

  "Confirmed."

  Fourteen

  Miriam and Eric were the last ones into the Theatre, and I’d been about to start without them. Both of them muttered a sorry as they went past me. I shut the door after them, and walked to the center of the stage.

  The Gaia council had the first level of seats. The Marshal, Admirals, and Generals had the second level up. My father sat with them, as the highest local military rank. The Alpha team, and everyone else who was a Major or higher in rank, sat on levels three and four. Amy, Melissa, Bob, Carter, David, and a number of unknown civilians sat above them.

  I pinged Bob to find out if the man next to him was the local shipyard manager and received a yes back. I'd need to talk to them both together sometime soon.

  Behind me on the stage area was the Keeper, Jane, Annabelle, and Jack. The latter two were going to repeat their earlier briefings for the locals.

  I introduced everyone on the stage, and then had everyone else introduce themselves by name, rank, and position. I learned the names of each council member, stored them in my PC, and promptly forgot them.