Hunter Legacy 11: Home Is Where the Hero Is

by Timothy Ellis

  "Have suites set up for these people on board."

  "Suites?" said the older man. "Did I hear you say suites?"

  "You did. Please don’t interrupt."

  "Sorry," he mumbled, sounding quite happy now.

  "Have Jeeves assign them some Butlers," I said to Jane, "and make sure they're escorted if they leave the ship for any reason. Give them everything they need, within reason."

  "Confirmed."

  Jane had the airlock open as we arrived there, and I headed straight up the ramp. Everyone followed me, and waited there for a trolley. A short time later, we arrived at the crystal.

  "It's real," said one of them.

  The rest stood there with their mouths open.

  "Can you get it to work?" I asked.

  "We'll die trying," said the leader, in a voice which resembled being as high as a kite. Maybe she was.

  "Thirteen, a word please."

  I stalked off a way, out of earshot.

  "Well?" I asked him.

  "I told One what we needed. She went back a year, added manpower to her organization, and they set about finding these people without knowing why. They were all fully vetted, and only these twelve were selected. They are all as spiritual as you are, have memories of Atlantean times, and they all do incredible things with crystals."

  "Don’t show them the other ones. They'll likely try to steal them."

  He chuckled.

  "By all means chuckle," I went on. "These people are your responsibility. What they are doing is the biggest secret we have. Do what you must to ensure it's kept. Get them what they need. If they go on-station, keep them quiet about their employment, and don’t let them get into trouble."

  "What do I do in my spare time?"

  I shook my head at him, and started walking away. Jane caught up with me on the trolley, and took me back to my suite. As we left the ship, I saw the airlock now had combat droids guarding it. The airlock closed behind us.

  I collected Angel, and Gunbus left for the shipyard once again. Timing wasn't so critical this time, so arriving after lunch wasn’t a big deal.

  The first completed Dreadnaught slid out of its bay just as we arrived. I'd seen it before, on the way to the Gaia jump point, Bob having paraded it in front of everyone. But it hadn't been complete, little more than a hull full of stuff needing ripping out.

  It looked the same as Defiant, only twice as large, and much more bad-arse. It only had a single hanger, the other one being used for more important things than docking small ships. The hanger it did have was still large enough for Gunbus, and it already had several shuttle sized ships in there. I assumed one of them was an Admiral's Gig.

  Jane docked us, and I carried Angel to the access shaft. She launched herself up out of my arms, and I followed her up. Jane shoved us both out, gently, onto the CCC Deck. This was the deck above the Cargo Deck on the top hull, which was itself down the middle of the ship. I poked my nose in various doors on my way to the CCC, which was almost in the center of the top section. All the accommodation and crew feeding and entertainment rooms were here. The CCC looked like all the rest, and most of the Bridges. I stayed there long enough to ensure everything worked, and then headed up to the Bridge itself. Angel trotted after me, jumped into the shaft herself, and let Jane push her up. I followed after, and again, Jane pushed us out on the only other deck with life support. This deck was all work related, and the Bridge was almost identical to BigMother's, only it had an Admiral's Ready Room as well as the Captain's. Conference Room and a small Mess were off the other side.

  The ship only had six habitable decks, four of which were for cargo. Each Cargo Deck had the standard airlock, so the ship could dock at any of the four. If each deck was being filled, the ship only had to undock, spin ninety degrees, and re-dock, to use a different deck. Down the track, this would be important. As well as fighting, we would need to be carrying supplies for ships leaving so fast they didn’t take enough.

  There were no marine facilities on this ship. Just enough accommodation for a crew. The ship was designed for one thing. Slugfesting.

  Angel vaulted up onto the console, and nothing happened this time. I accessed the control systems, and found the console hadn't been activated. Maybe Angel's firing of guns previously had spooked Bob, or someone in his team. I chuckled my way through system testing. Everything checked out.

  "You there old son?"

  Bob had popped up on a side screen, and could see us perfectly well.

  "Where else would I be?"

  "On a beach with naked girls?"

  "Don’t tempt me."

  He laughed. The expected rejoinder which contained the word 'missus', didn’t come.

  "Is she what you wanted?"

  "Looks like it. I'll give her a good test on the way back. For now, I'll do all the flight testing on the way to the jump point, then see what time I have for fun on the other side."

  "Enjoy. Did you decide on a name?"

  "I did. Relentless."

  "Good choice. Give me a minute or two to get it registered."

  The other option was Dauntless. But I thought Relentless was a better match for my mood at the moment, or at least, the one I was cultivating. A second ship of this class was still under construction at the Treasure Chest Shipyard, so it could be named Dauntless.

  I spent the time making sure the HUD was set up the way I liked it, and testing controls. The basic ones for getting around seemed to be fine.

  "All done," said Bob, while I was still working my way through menus. "You're good to go."

  "I'll be back," I said in a deep voice, and slid the thrust slider forward to the stops.

  I would be too. Once the Explorer ships came out of their bays. For now though, the first wave of ship upgrades was complete. Some Destroyers were still in the works, but I’d probably send Lacey to take delivery of them. Hopefully give him a taste for larger ships.

  Bob grinned at me, and the popup de-popped.

  Relentless picked up speed almost as fast as the fully docked BigMother did. This wasn’t surprising considering there were three Battleship engines back there. The third one was in the center rectangle, and all three were being oversupplied by nearly four Battleship's worth of power generators. The rectangle at the middle of the ship had no other purpose than to feed power to engines and shields. The result was almost up to what BigMother could make, with Unassailable and four Guardians docked to her.

  The up side was the five hour trip to the shipyard in Gunbus was about a three hour trip back. It left me a couple of hours before my dinner party.

  By the time we reached the jump point, I’d thrown the ship around like a drunk idiot, and even flipped it end to end a couple of times. I'd never had the chance to do this with BigMother, and the thrill of doing it now made me feel powerful and invincible. Definitely a don’t do this at home moment. This ship was huge, and dogfighting it like a fighter couldn’t be done unless you were alone, or didn’t mind everything else bouncing off your view screens unexpectedly.

  Angel sat her spot on the console, grin firmly in place. I'd never worked out what was so fascinating about space travel to her, but I was glad to have her with me.

  I went through the jump point at full speed, scaring the hell out of the blockade fighters, and angled down towards the nearest asteroid field.

  "Will we be requiring clean up on isle one?" asked Jane.

  "I hope so."

  A ship changed direction on the HUD, and began coming towards. I checked its info, and it was one of the collector mining Cruisers. With luck, I could fill it a lot faster than usual, albeit with a lot higher waste factor. Wasting asteroids wasn’t one of my concerns though.

  I brought Relentless to a stop, just within range of the Destroyer guns, and broadside on to the field, so all my guns on three sides could fire at once.

  The ship specs popped up on a side screen, and I checked what I had. Bob had remade the main turrets. The original two guns per turret, were now
three. This gave me nine main guns on each section. Top and right had two turrets on the front end of the ship, and one at the rear, while left and bottom had the reverse, one in front and two at the rear. This allowed eighteen guns to fire forward, while another eighteen fired back, at the same time, and provided a broadside of twenty seven guns in any given side direction.

  "Jane, choose the biggest roid for a target. Broadside fire all the main guns at it, and then roll the ship to fire the other nine as soon as they bare. Then cease fire."

  When I had time, I’d need to test how fast the guns recharged, and see how many rolls were needed before the next firing. The Cruiser and Destroyer guns could be timed to fire between main gun broadsides.

  "Confirmed. You want some cam drones out there first to record it?"

  "Probably a good idea."

  "Launching."

  I waited, looking at multiple screens showing turrets moving into position.

  "Firing in ten," said Jane, and I counted it down in my head.

  More screens popped up showing drone feed. The ship fired, began to roll, and seconds later fired again. A giant area of the asteroid field simply vanished, replaced mostly by dust. Small chunks of rock blew away from the target area in almost all directions.

  "Meow!"

  "You said it sweetie."

  Meow indeed.

  "Move us to a new test area, and do the same with the Cruiser guns, and again with the Destroyer guns."

  "Confirmed."

  Amy popped up.

  "Enjoying yourself boss?"

  "Indeed yes."

  "Was it a good idea to do it so publically?"

  "Oops."

  It hadn't occurred to me.

  "I've locked down the feed for now, but what do I tell the Media?"

  "Make an announcement to the effect this is the weapons test of the first Dreadnaught class ship, named Relentless, which has been built by Hunter Security in response to the threat of the Darkness, expected to invade our arm of the galaxy in six months from now. More ships are being developed to combat this threat, but Relentless is the first new class of Battleship sized ships to be commissioned. Several Super-Cruisers have been commissioned this week as well, one of which will be seen coming down the spine on assignment, escorting the newest Apricot Mapping Service Cruiser. We have new smaller ships being built as well, but preference is being given to the bigger ones first. Announcements of other commissioning's will be made at a later date."

  "Put more diplomatically I assume?"

  "Of course."

  "What can I tell them about her specs?"

  "Not much. Just say she has the firepower of two and half Repulse class Battleships, but with a faster top speed."

  "Anyone who's never seen a Battleship firing before, is going to wet themselves."

  "Meaning you have people there changing their smalls as we speak?"

  "Yep."

  We both laughed. She vanished.

  "You may fire when ready, Grisly."

  Jane didn’t respond, but the ship did two more full broadsides while rolling, and another section of the asteroid field turned into dust.

  "Re-designate any moving rock about missile sized as a missile, and test the Mosquitos."

  The ship continued rolling and each Mosquito launcher belched its one hundred mozzies as it came to bare on the field. Each launcher had its medium level AI, coordinated by a Jane clone in the computer room in the core of the ship, which itself was independent of Jane controlling the rest of the ship.

  The whole area was quickly filled with tiny streaks, which each became a small explosion.

  "Now designate any rock coming towards us as a missile, but only use the Point Defense."

  I turned to one of the drone cams. The ship lit up like a Christmas tree, and flickered madly for about five seconds.

  The roll stopped, and we sat there.

  Angel turned around to look at me, right paw raised. I rose, walked over to her, and we high fived.

  Fifty One

  The dining table had been moved out into the living room, and was piled high with food and drink. The team were all here. Some of them I hadn't seen for a while, and some of them were not who I considered 'the team'. I really did need to talk to Jane about definitions. The team was Annabelle, Amanda, Aleesha, Aline, Alison, Abigail, Alana, and Agatha. Also George, but he wasn’t in the system.

  Jane had also invited Grace, Amy, Melissa, Dick, Jack and Sam. Jane was here herself of course, and so was D-Jane, and she had been introduced to my mother, who'd been glad there was someone else her own age around. It wasn’t that she'd complained about too many pretty young things around me, as she'd, well, complained exactly like that. Not to me mind you, but Jane had picked it up and let me know. Out of Annabelle, D-Jane, and my mother, the latter was the younger. Or so she thought. They were all over forty, and that was all which really mattered. It was just possible the number forty still had significance to Mum. It was after all, one of those milestones people had a hard time dealing with. Or so my Uncle had told me on some of our trips in Wanderer before the Door opened, and all this madness began.

  Angel, Max, and Nut were here too, and Jeeves was having a hard time keeping them off the table.

  Blowing things up had been nicely cathartic for me. The whole 'I'm an open book' thing was behind me now, and I was settled with the notion of space being my home. Blowing things up seemed to make Angel happy as well. Go figure.

  But something still niggled at me. Aline knew it, but I don’t think anyone else did. She didn’t mention it though. What was more alarming was the readiness with which she was acting as hostess. I'd expected my mother to take that role, but she'd been quite happy ensconced in a comfortable chair being sought out by everyone else.

  The main conversation around her seemed to be anecdotes about the younger me. I stayed well out of hearing range, and made a point of ignoring the looks flashed at me, all with grinning faces.

  Amy button holed me at one point, when I was standing there alone.

  "You caused quite a stir today."

  "So you told me."

  "Not that. When you arrived back at the station."

  "Huh?"

  "Maybe you weren’t paying attention, but Jane circled the entire station before coming in to dock. If there were more than a dozen people on the whole station who weren’t either in the docking areas watching the Dreadnaught go by the windows, or watching on a screen, I'd be very surprised."

  "Hasn’t anyone seen a ship dock before?"

  "Not one this big, or so strangely shaped."

  "BigMother is bigger."

  "But she's a conventional shape. It's probably just as well we're playing up the coming of Darkness."

  "Why?"

  "Because if we didn’t have that reason for building a warship so big, sector leaders would now be shitting themselves."

  "I think some are anyway," said Jane as she joined us. "Relentless, more than anything, may cause the arms race we need, even if it's not for the reason we want the ships built. Earth just announced they are building bigger Battleships. Since the largest ship they have now is a Cruiser, I’d say either the Earth sector politicians are changing their shorts after seeing you demolishing an asteroid field for fun, or that Admiral you love is raising hell because he knows he can't beat you in a fight if it comes down to one."

  "Whatever. If it gets more ships built, who cares what the motivation is."

  "Yes, but, a couple of months from now, we need to head down spine with a significant fleet. We don’t want to be fighting a war in the Earth system because some idiot is shit scared of us."

  "Point. Amy, that’s your job from now on. The media here need to be totally behind our message of defending the arm from an alien invader. Bribe people if you have to, but make sure anyone who talks our message down, is made a laughing stock, or their message is revealed as complete rubbish in very simple terms everyone can understand."

  "Thanks boss. I need a
challenge."

  She didn’t sound very enthusiastic. Jane seemed distracted. It suddenly occurred to me I’d asked her to do exactly what I'd always hated of the Media.

  "No, don’t do that. Just make sure our message is heard."

  "That I can do."

  "What?" I said to Jane, who still looked distrcted.

  "Thirteen was telling me One has an organization which has been doing exactly that all year. Remember your memorandum and how it wasn’t initially broadcast? That was One's doing."

  "Figures. Is he here now?"

  "Thirteen?"

  "Yes."

  "For fucks sake show yourself Thirteen. If you're going to crash a party, have the decency to be seen doing it."

  He materialized slightly behind me, looking sheepish.

  "Sorry. Force of habit."

  "And stop standing behind me all the time. If you're going to be a person, be a bloody person, and mingle."

  Those around me laughed. He grinned as well, and made off to talk to Annabelle.

  "I wonder who else is here who isn’t supposed to be."

  "You really want an answer to that Jon?"

  "No. I know already. Or at least, I can guess. I'm just grousing about it."

  "We know," said Amy.

  Jane stiffened.

  "What?"

  "Trouble."

  "What sort?"

  "Not sure. There's a travel car approaching, and it's dark to me."

  "Who's armed?" I asked as I started towards the door.

  "Just you and me, and I've only my stunners."

  "What's going on…" came from Amy behind me, but just then, a combat suit burst through the door.

  Fifty Two

  "Nobody move!" yelled the combat suit.

  Movement and conversation stopped. The voice gave no indication of gender. Or anything else about the occupant.

  "One of the new prototypes," said Jane through my PC.

  The combat suit was carrying a large gun, and its arm stunners were out as well. The gun was pointing at the heavens above us. One arm was pointed at me. It would be possible to fire both at the same time.