"They want the system closed for good."
"So how do they achieve that by asking for two people?" asked Jack.
"They don't," said Amanda.
"Yes they do," contradicted Aleesha.
"How?" I asked.
"You and the Keeper represent the prophecy. Kill you both, and the prophecy is gone."
"But that won't keep the system closed," added Amanda. "It only happens if no-one leaves."
"Fuck!" I said.
I thought for a minute.
"Keeper will be here in five minutes," said Jane.
I sighed.
"Group Captain."
"Sir?" answered Lacey.
"Launch everything. CAP around BigMother and Galactica. Interdict everything within ten kilometers of the station. They return to their starting point. If they refuse, you bag them and tow them away. If they can't be towed, take them down."
"Launching now."
"General."
"Sir?"
"Change the troop's orders. Team one follows me, and wait for the need to come in. Team two takes and secures the shuttle docks of the main station. Team six will guard BigMother's…"
I stopped. I wasn’t thinking straight.
"Jane, as soon as the Keeper is on board, and troops stop moving, undock BigMother and move her to a safe distance. If anyone want to take her, they'll need ships."
I turned to Jack.
"Colonel, team six is to go directly to Galactica. Take five as well, and some combat droids. If my father is on board, have him undock immediately. If not, you take command and get her out to a safe place, where BigMother can protect her. Deploy your troops to repel boarders if anything gets past Lacey's people."
"Aye Sir."
He saluted and left, giving orders as he went.
I turned back to Annabelle.
"Deploy three and four on BigMother to repel boarders. Two needs to take the station control center as well as the shuttle docks."
"Moving," she responded.
Amanda caught my eye, and I nodded to her. They moved as well.
"What am I missing General?"
"Nothing obvious. Missiles again?"
"Jane, be ready for another missile attack. Co-ordinate with Lacey to take out the launchers if need be. No messing around this time. If we get spread that thin, we go for kills immediately."
"Confirmed. I'm moving the Lightning to a better airlock for the Keeper."
"Fine."
"You want me on the Lightning for all of this?"
"Please."
Nineteen
The Keeper and I walked into the mining base side by side. Jane remained on the Lightning. The two goons standing there waiting for us, waved guns to indicate we should stop. It was obvious the guns were straight laser pulsers. They weren't mucking around with stunners. As expected, they frisked us. They removed the two standard stunners I was wearing. I'd been so certain we would be searched, I'd not bothered with the camouflage, and left my guns with Jane. I was wearing spares from the armoury, just because they expected I would be wearing something. They paid more attention to the Keeper than me, as he was wearing loose civilian clothing, and 'slinky red' made it pretty obvious I had nothing up my sleeves. But they seemed to be aware I could hide guns on the outside, and anything I had tried to hide, would have been found.
It would have been so easy to disarm them, but I didn’t see the point in pushing things yet. They'd seized a wildcat by the short and curlies. They just didn’t know it yet.
One of them set off down a passageway, the other motioned us to follow him, and brought up the rear. We wound our way inwards. No-one said anything. I pinged Sarah, now I should be in range.
"I'm coming for you. Be cool. I'm sending you a request to give me access to your suits. Please grant it. Have the suits activated at any time so far?"
"No Jonny," she pinged back. "They haven’t. We're in normal clothes, with the suits set to ornate belts."
"Good. Whatever happens, don’t panic. I'll keep you safe."
"I'm pretty sure they're going to shoot all of us."
"Even if they try, you and the baby are quite safe. Believe me."
"I believe you. I don’t know why though."
"See you shortly."
I pinged her the access request. She accepted it. I opened up controls for both their suits, checked they were on hair-trigger, and linked them to mine. When mine went protection mode, theirs would too, but they still had the ability to change on their own if an actual threat occurred. Having someone point a gun at you wasn’t an actual threat. Locking a target on you was. But most people firing guns they didn’t really know how to use, simply pointed and pulled the trigger. As such, the threat happened after the trigger was pulled. But the suit only needed fractions of a seconds warning to switch into protection mode. It was the baby I was most worried about, as his suit would only take a few fast full pulses. Sarah had the same protection as I did. But I knew her instinct would be to protect the baby, and no matter how much firepower they had, it wasn’t going to be enough to hurt her. Or me.
The Keeper had informed me he was adequately protected, and I’d assumed he was wearing civilian body armour, such as most police forces still used. It wouldn’t protect him from a head shot, nor would it protect his limbs, but he seemed unconcerned. He was after all, supreme in his faith, and he knew damned well I was lethal without a gun. It remained to be seen how many bad guys we were dealing with.
I had to chuckle to myself. They were going the long way around, obviously trying to disorient us so we had no clue as to the way out. But Jane knew exactly where we were, and was updating me in real time. We passed people along the way, who stood there and watched us pass. None of them looked happy to see us, and quite a few exhibited anger. Most of them were armed with something.
"Hostile environment," I sub-vocalized. "Guns all round, in unhappy hands. If the gun moves, shoot it."
"Noted," responded Amanda.
Finally, we were led into a large room. I counted twenty people around the walls, including their leader, who was obvious. Had I been going in Fifth Element, he'd have been down already.
Sarah was kneeling on the floor, the baby in her arms. Standing behind her, gun almost touching her face, was Councilor Objectionable.
No surprise there.
Twenty guns were pointed at us. No way to tell if they were on stun or not, but I assumed not. We were nowhere near an outside wall, so damage wasn’t much of a factor for them.
The two goons who'd brought us here pushed us forward into the center of the room, and took positions by the door.
I was finding it difficult not to laugh. If these people actually started firing at us, like as not, they'd hit the person standing opposite themselves instead of us.
I put a mild smile on my face, and gave everyone the impression I wasn’t intimidated. I wasn’t, but they didn’t know that.
"Jonny," said Sarah, "please do whatever they ask."
"Fighting on board," said Annabelle suddenly. She'd gone to the Bridge of BigMother. "They must have sneaked in somehow. Teams are on it."
"Same here," said Jack. "We have them contained, but I'm worried they brought explosives with them."
"Send in the combat droids," I sub-vocalized. "If we need to repair some damage, so be it."
"Nothing to say Hunter?" said Objectionable. "Not even a supportive word for your girlfriend?"
I looked at him, letting my grin grow a little. There was no point in answering that.
"On your knees Hunter. You too Keeper."
I motioned to the Keeper to stay where he was.
"Defiance Hunter? Want to watch your girlfriend and baby die?"
"No-one has to die," I responded.
Objectionable jerked his gun up, and shot the Keeper in the heart. He went over backwards with blood spurting down his front, jerked a few times, and went still.
I hadn't seen that coming. The Keeper hadn't been wearing body armour
after all.
I shook my head, and looked at Objectionable again, who now had his gun pointing at Sarah again. She'd gone white, and was clutching Michael tightly to her. The little guy was serenely asleep.
I smiled at her. She made the slightest of nods to indicate she understood.
"You have three options," I said to Objectionable, but talking to the whole room.
"Really," he said with a supercilious smirk. "And what are they?"
"One, we walk out of here now. We forgive everyone involved. You are taken into custody for murder. No-one else dies."
The laughter from around the room made it plain what they thought of option one.
"Two, we stand here until my troops take the whole base, and then you surrender to them."
"You're troops have their own problems I think Hunter."
He was enjoying himself.
"Situation contained," said Jack. "Your parents are safe, we have a few fugitives trying to escape now, but the explosives have been neutralized."
"No problems here," said Annabelle. "Jane has them under ten gees."
"Are you referring to the troops you smuggled onto my ships?"
His sneer faltered a bit, so I took that as a yes.
"I'm afraid your troops were no match for mine. One or two are running for their lives, but they won't get far. Nowhere to actually run to after all."
"How do you know that?"
I shook my head and rolled my eyes at the same time. I don’t recommend it.
"Did you even think to interrupt my communications somehow? Or are you just completely ignorant? I lead a professional Mercenary company. You’re a mouse pissing off an elephant, and just as stupid."
Now he was mad.
"Option three is I pull my sword out and cover the floor in here with blood."
Silence. Then raucous laughter. My sword appeared on my back, and silence descended again as I drew it.
"I can still shoot you all before you get close enough to use that thing."
"Sure you can. But it's totally pointless you trying."
"It wasn’t for him," he said, pointing at the body of the Keeper.
"He wasn’t under my protection."
"Fine, have it your way."
His finger tightened on the trigger, and I shifted our three suits into full protection mode. His shot hit Sarah in the face, she flinched, but quickly pushed away from him as her body did a sort of hop, and turning her body to protect her baby completely, she came down with a slight thump.
He fired at her again, hitting her in the back, close to where her heart was, a look of incredulity coming over his face, as the second shot also had no effect on her at all beyond her being lifted a short way off the floor again.
I was two steps toward him now, sword ready to use, and striding as fast as I could. Pulses started hitting me from around the room, and strides became hops. I was still in the air when Objectionable got his gun aligned on me and fired a third time. Nothing happened except I bounced a little higher on the next step.
With one swipe, I cut his gun arm off around about the elbow. Hand and gun clattered to the floor, the stump bleeding profusely. He went down, desperately clutching his stump with his other hand.
"Amanda, go," I said out loud.
"Already on the way," Aleesha replied.
I turned towards the nearest gun, and found the rest of the room not only firing on me, but stepping in to fight me.
"So be it," I muttered, and instead of trying to minimally maim my way around the room, I let the sword work its way through twenty one people.
By the time the only movement left in the room was me, there were forty four body parts instead of twenty two people. I was covered in blood. Sarah was splashed with blood.
I shifted our suits to 'slinky red'. Damn me if the little guy didn’t look good in uniform. Blood splatted and all. He wasn’t crying, which I thought was amazing.
The sword went back into its sheath, and vanished.
Sarah looked around the room, and fainted.
Twenty
"That went well, I thought," said a voice behind me, and I whirled around to verify who it was.
The Keeper stood there grinning at me.
The front of his clothes were covered in blood, and most of the rest of him was sprayed as well. The room itself didn’t have a lot of other colour than blood red. I'd made a mess.
Movement behind the Keeper drew my attention. Jane burst into the room, took in everything at a glance, and strode past me without a word. Amanda and Aleesha, in 'slinky red', not combat armour, followed at her heels. Alison was right behind them, and also not in armour. As a group, they went straight over to Sarah. Alison plucked the baby from her arms, and Jane picked her up. They headed for the door as fast as was safe, given the slick nature of the floor.
As they went past, I shifted their suits back to belts, so they wouldn’t impede a medical checkup.
Amanda knelt, and pressed her fingers to the throat of Objectionable.
"We got a live one here," she said, and proceeded to unbuckle his belt, slip if off, and tighten it above the stump.
Carter shot in the door, slipped on the blood, and went down. She skidded for a bit, gained her knees, and duck waddled the rest of the way. She pulled her backpack off, and started to work on him. Several of her team followed soon after, one pulling a portable care unit. Within minutes, he was placed in the care unit, and it was pulled out as fast as was safe. Carter was covered in blood. She gave me a withering look as she left, but said nothing. The Keeper's grin grew wider.
"Sitrep," I said to the twins, before they too could leave.
I'd been listening to team coms in the background, so I had a good idea, but I hadn't really been paying attention to the details. I'd been a little busy at one point.
"Mining base secured," said Amanda. "We stunned everyone coming in. Most had guns anyway so it seemed prudent."
"We found the miners locked in a store room," added Aleesha.
"No offense boss," said Amanda, "but you two need a shower."
They grinned at me, and I waved them permission to leave. I turned to the Keeper, but let the girls get out of earshot before I dropped myself out of team coms.
"How are you alive?" I asked him.
"It’s a kind of magic," he responded, still grinning.
"Magic? You're going with that?"
"Sure. It was really only a parlor trick. I'm wearing body armour, and I added some stage effects under my clothes."
"Why?"
"It was pretty obvious they were going to shoot me, and since head shots require a good aim, and none of these people really know how to use a gun, then a chest shot was the most likely. So I gave them what they expected to see."
"Why didn’t you just ask me for a belt?"
"Where's the fun in that? Besides, if I'd been wearing a belt, it would have alerted them to the fact they had a real problem, and things might have really gone pear shaped."
I shook my head in wonder.
"You do need a shower as much as I do," he went on. "Shall we?"
I nodded and led the way out. My PC popped up an arrow to follow. I turned team coms back on.
"General? Sitrep please."
"Both ships secured. Prisoners are being transferred to station security as we speak."
"Good-oh. Have Jane dock both ships again."
"Confirmed."
Jane had been listening in, of course.
The Keeper suddenly pulled me to a stop.
"The council wants to see us immediately," he said.
"Now?"
"Now."
"Like this?"
"Apparently. But I doubt they know exactly how we look."
"Okay."
I let him lead me the rest of the way to the Lightning, where we found Jane waiting for us. She flew us to the station's shuttle dock. While we crossed space, I pinged Walter.
"General, you don’t happen to have an Engineering corps you can
do without for a year?"
"I might. What for?"
"These mining asteroids. We're going to need masses of resources for building here in space and dirtside. And we're going to need as much living space as we can make."
"Yes. So?"
"Engineers could streamline the mining of more asteroids, and turning them into habitats."
"I'll ask. If it can be done, it will be. Should I ask for more mining crews as well?"
"Good idea, yes. But they need to be here before the Door closes, and for now, they can't know where they are going, just that it's a one year gig minimum."
"Leave it with me."
Jane docked us at the main shuttle bay on the station. I followed the Keeper to the council chamber, Jane following along behind us both. At some point along the way, I caught a glimpse of a combat suit doing rearguard. The insignia on it looked like BA's. It wasn’t until we arrived, it occurred to me we could have showered in the Lightning. Oh well.
The council looked shocked as we walked in. I couldn’t help it, but burst out laughing, and the Keeper joined me.
"What's so funny?" came from the left side.
"You're faces," answered the Keeper.
"Are you hurt?" came from the right.
"Not our blood," I said.
If anything, that made them even more shocked.
"What happened?" asked American Indian.
The Keeper pointed to the empty seat on the right.
"That happened."
All heads turned to the empty seat. Then back to us.
"Kindly be more specific."
The Keeper nodded to me. I sighed, and then took a deep breath.
"Your fellow councilor abducted my ex-girlfriend and my son. We were told to present ourselves or they would be killed. We did so. I warned them, and suggested they surrender quietly. Your councilor friend shot the Keeper, then shot Sarah. I cut the arm holding the gun off around the elbow, and then had to defend myself against twenty one other people in the room who all tried to kill me at the same time."
"And what happened to them?"
"All dead. Except your fellow councilor, who was alive last I saw him. One of my people stopped him bleeding out, and he had a doctor treating him shortly after. If you care to check with my Doctor Carter, she should be able to give you a full account of his condition."
Hunter Legacy 11: Home Is Where the Hero Is Page 8
