"Depending on how major the release is, how far it goes back, and how important it is to you, it can manifest as a physical release as well. Some people yawn or hiccup. Many of us cough. In an extreme case, it might manifest as diarrhoea. During my early work, I ended up on the floor one time, coughing my guts out for half an hour. When I stopped, I felt like I'd coughed my entire chest out. Anyway, the point is, the physical reaction is good. More than that, it's important, because it gives you an idea of how important the release was."
"So I do these for each dead pilot, even though I never knew them?"
"Yes. That’s a start anyway."
"A start?"
"Yes. Everyone's lives are full of stuff they should be releasing. Every time someone has elicited a negative reaction from you in any form, you should be doing a release for it. What happens to you is not as important as how you react. Your reaction is what you work on. Every time it's in any way negative, the first thing you do is a release on the person, situation, or both. The statement can be used to release anything."
"You do this in meditation?"
"Yes, I find it easier that way. It's not strictly necessary though."
"I don’t know how to meditate."
I pulsed him 'The Wisdom of the Ages, Accrued Karma'.
"That’s another book we read early. It has the basics of meditation in it, as well as the release statement, what each part of it means, and how to use it."
"Thanks Jon. I really appreciate this."
MEOW
I looked down to where it came from. Angel was sitting in my lap looking up at me, obviously wanting to be patted. I hadn’t noticed her move from her pad on the console to my lap.
George laughed and I joined him, while stroking Angel. He left us alone on the Bridge.
Seventeen
Talking to George had reminded me that I'd a lot of releases still to do myself. Thirteen ships from yesterday, and another twenty six today. I set to work doing them.
The work complete, I headed downstairs for lunch, leaving Angel on her kitty castle.
The girls were at the table discussing something in low tones. George was seated in a lounge chair looking vacant, obviously reading.
I sat at the table, giving the girls space. Jason appeared, and I quickly had something to eat. Eric came in looking bleary eyed when I was half way through. He nodded, sat and ordered. The girls were eating too by this time. George dragged himself out of his chair and joined us. No-one spoke, we just ate.
After eating, I went back to the Bridge. Angel was asleep on her pad. I tickled her, eliciting a purr, but she didn't move.
"Jane?"
"Jon?"
"How much can you really do with a ship that doesn’t have a pilot, assuming a normal computer system?"
"Context?"
"Are you capable of flying a squadron or more of souped up Talons, in such a way they become a much bigger threat than they normally would be?"
"I don’t see why not. The limitation would be distance. At some point I would lose direct control. So if you wanted them to be independent, a clone would need to do the flying."
"Yes, that’s what I thought. Any problem with that?"
"None. What did you have in mind?"
"I was thinking of redesigning any Talons we have left over, after the Militia buy what they need, into pilotless drones. We remove the cockpit completely, and replace it with a missile launcher, torpedo launcher and top and bottom Point Defense turrets. Maybe add a few more guns. No life support requirements, so we have more power for shields and speed. A squadron would allow you to fire twelve missiles at a time, at a single target, or twelve missiles at twelve different targets. Likewise it would give you an instant twelve torpedo spread at a capital ship. Could you manage that?"
"I think so. I've enough examples of your flying to learn from."
"We could make up a simulator as well. Fly George and myself up against you, so you can learn."
"What about attaching the twelve ships to form one single ship?" Jane voiced, before I could.
"Cluster? Moves as one ship until encountering a target it can't handle, such as several squadrons of fighters, when it comes apart into separate ships for individual dogfights. I like that. The mechanism for linking and unlinking might be complicated though. Have to ask Bob about that."
There was something familiar about this. Game perhaps?
"Would be useful if the cluster starts as individual ships. That way they can be launched from a Carrier quickly, and they link up after. A large cluster would be difficult to carry around."
"Now there's a thought. Talking of carrying things around. The Carrier has the external area to allow for four or so Drone Missile Cruisers to attach underneath. It could carry them around as well as its own fighters. If we gut the Cruisers of all crew spaces and life support, we could restructure the ships so they could fire missiles while docked underneath the Carrier. Without needing people on board, we could significantly increase its specs in all respects."
Jane started pointing out flaws in the thinking, and we spent the afternoon debating what was and wasn’t possible. By the time we ended the session, we had partial design parameters for both the cluster drones and Cruiser drones, ready for Bob to look over.
About an hour before our eta at the Azgard jump point, I went off to relieve myself and have a quick drink and snack. I was back on the Bridge well before we came into scanner range. So were the others.
Time ticked down slowly, the tension rising. At least this time we had the advantage of being at long range when we hit their scanners.
Before I really expected it, the scanner lit up with twenty six new dots. They were not at the jump point, but heading on a line somewhat across our course.
"Jane, take them please, before they fire."
The ships all stopped.
"Why are they not at the jump point?" asked George.
"Probably just relieved by another force," said Eric.
I thought he was right.
"Jane, put them into a formation, ready to go back to the jump point, but leave them here for now. If there is another force at the jump point, I don’t want them to see this lot."
"Confirmed."
We kept on going. As expected, staked out around the jump point was twenty six more.
"Jon, it's not working this time."
I grabbed for the controls and brought us around, heading back towards the other group of ships. Two barrages of missiles headed after us, followed by all twenty six ships. The Cruisers started to lag behind immediately.
"Jane, can those two Cruisers we captured fire their missiles?"
"One shot each. They're manually reloaded."
"I'm going to draw this lot across the front of the first lot. Do the Cruisers have missile turrets on both sides?"
"Affirmative."
"Can you individually fire each missile at a different target?"
"Affirmative."
"Okay. Fire the side facing on each ship, at the missiles aimed at us. Then roll the Cruisers so the other side faces the Cruisers and fire the whole barrage at them."
"Confirmed."
"We'll have to deal with the fighter missiles and Talons ourselves."
Amanda and Aleesha jumped for the nearest gun positions. George and Eric, already sitting there, followed their lead and took control of turrets.
I kept our speed below maximum, looking like a Corvette running. The Cruisers were slower than a standard Corvette was, so they were falling behind.
The missiles were catching us.
"Are we in range yet Jane?
"Almost, wait for it, wait, wait, firing."
Four hundred more yellow dots took after the four hundred yellow dots which were rapidly catching up with us. Behind them were another lot of fighter missiles. That was a lot of yellow on the scanner.
I pushed us to full speed, and the creep towards us slowed slightly. It was going to be close.
I watched as
one set of missiles closed with the other, and suddenly missiles were exploding behind us in a display the likes I'd never seen before. Eight hundred missiles exploding is an awesome sight. Something unexpected happened next. The fighter missiles behind ran into the explosion debris and exploded themselves.
I kept us running.
"Jane."
"I can see why they never did this themselves. Those ships have the rolling capacity of a brick. Another minute."
"Fire as soon as you can, I don’t want them getting off another shot at us."
The Talons were falling well behind now, but not giving up the chase.
"Launching."
Four hundred more missile dots headed away from us, towards the two enemy Cruisers.
I slowed us down and started a wide turn back the way we had come.
"Guys, you can watch this. I don’t think we'll need turrets for a bit," I called out.
They all looked forwards, just in time to see the two Cruisers explode.
Picking up speed again, I started sending IR missiles at the Talons. Forty eight missiles, twenty four Talons. When we reached their position, there were only forty eight dead ships.
I love it when a plan comes together!
Jane formed the damaged Talons up into a bunch, and sent them towards the jump point. The captured ships also formed up into a formation and headed there.
We arrived first. There was no further enemy presence.
I jumped us through.
There were twelve brown dots in Azgard. Bounty Hunters. A channel opened.
"You again?" a familiar voice said.
"Me again. Last time. We're on our way home this time."
"What's the situation in Midgard?"
"Not good. We've taken out a lot of ships, but they're building them as fast as we've killed them. The Americans have withdrawn to Miami and have that jump point solidly blockaded. Is there more coming to support you?"
"Yes, but it will be another day or two. Azgard hasn’t needed a real fleet for so long, most of their ships were in mothballs. They're being re-commissioned, but they don’t have the crews for many. Cobol is sending something, we don’t know what yet. In the meantime, we're getting bounties on any Midgard ship we can kill. Sci-Fi sector issued them a few hours ago, so I expect there will be other hunters on their way here as well."
"Glad to hear it. I've been out of touch for the last eight hours. Be warned, if you go into Midgard, there's no coms of any kind in there. If something happens to you, you're on your own. My advice is stay here and wait for them to come to you."
"We'll see what happens."
"In the meantime, I have captured ships jumping through here. They'll have Hunter ID's, so please don’t shoot them. I'd leave them here to help you, but they're pretty useless without a guiding AI and a refit. One group will be coming through shortly. Another similar group is some hours behind us. After that, if you see a Talon or a Tyr, shoot it."
"Thanks for the heads up. We'll try to leave your ships intact."
"I’d appreciate that. Good luck." I closed the channel.
"Jane, bring them through and send them to the station."
"Confirmed."
My pad was downloading emails again. I used it to send a 'we're safe' message to the General and Colonel. On the Admiral's, I included details of what had happened to us in Midgard, and the unhappy news that they appeared to have removed our ability to take their ships over with an AI.
Eighteen
I didn’t wait any longer, and started the crossing of Azgard. We all went down to the common room. The tension of the last day relieved, dinner was a happier event than lunch had been.
"Why wasn’t Jane able to take over that last group of ships?" asked Amanda.
"My guess," said Eric, "is someone with a brain made the deduction that our computers were able to take over theirs, and ordered them all be pulled."
"Or they removed any form of networking between them that wasn’t a hard wire," I said. That rang a big bell, until I remembered I'd watched a similar scenario several weeks before on my entertainment screen.
"That would make them hell to fly," said George.
"I wouldn't want to," said Eric.
That ended the discussion, and talk after that was general stuff.
After, I went to my office to look through emails, in case anything urgent had come in. Angel climbed up my leg and went to sleep on my lap.
There was an email from the Admiral, with two vids attached. I played the first one.
"Captain. Attached is the first interrogation of the prisoner you brought us. It did not go well, as you will see. Let me know if you have any insights."
The second vid was, as the Admiral had said, the interrogation of the prisoner. Not gone well, was something of an overstatement. It hadn't gone at all. The prisoner had shown no understanding of any language used by the interrogators. When he did speak, it was complete gibberish. The translators were baffled. Even the ship computer and Yorkie were baffled.
I opened a vid.
"Admiral. As annoying as it is, it makes sense that the prisoner cannot be understood. The only communication we've had with the enemy is through a single repeating statement. My guess is, those who are sent into space to fight, have not been allowed to learn any other language but the one the prisoner was speaking, precisely so that no dialogue could occur. I'd go out on a limb and say the language is some form of ancient Norse, or what the Midgard people in charge think is ancient Norse. It could be the whole planet speaks it, and no other language is allowed now that communication has been broken off with other systems. It may well be that communications were broken off in order to remove the last uncontrolled use of other languages."
I paused the vid and thought some more. I made an intuitive leap, did some fast research, and thought about it for a few minutes. I restarted the vid.
"The situation at the Azgard Midgard jump point is this. It's currently guarded by a dozen Bounty Hunters. More are on the way. Azgard is sending ships, but not many and they're all old. Cobol is sending something. I'll let you know what if we pass them."
I paused it again.
"Jane, if we pass ships from Cobol or anywhere else while I'm asleep, contact them and let them know we have our own ships following behind us, and send a message to the Admiral with the numbers and composition of the force."
"Confirmed."
I restarted the vid.
"In my opinion, the Azgard blockade won't hold in the short term. Depending on what's heading there now, enemy ships that get through may be stopped by them, but I have a bad feeling about that. I think you should warn the Avon Shipyard and any other shipyard in the Sci-Fi sector. They might be the primary target of any force running the blockade. They won't get to the Sydney Shipyard, I'll make sure of that. But unless the Sci-Fi sector get their act together and send a decent fleet to intercept, I fear that under-protected systems are going to suffer damage. I doubt they'll fire on planets. I think their target is shipyards and shipping. Please get the word out. Hunter out."
I attached vid to email and sent it off.
"What the fuck?" came up the stairwell in stereo. Angel awoke, shinned down my leg, and shot into the living room. There was a jumble of unintelligible noise, followed by what sounded like a herd of elephants coming up. I peeked out of the office door, to see Amanda and Aleesha, with George behind, vault over the cat wall, which kept Angel from going downstairs, and come towards me. I retreated back to my desk.
Amanda burst through the doorway.
"What's this?" she demanded.
"What this is that?" I responded with a wry smile. I'd a very good idea what they were talking about.
"This!" said Aleesha, throwing a bank statement onto my office wall.
"Specifically this," said Amanda, pointing at a single entry.
It was a perfectly normal transaction line with the abnormal amount of two and a half million credits.
"We each have one of thes
e," said George.
"Yes," I said. "I sent them. The whole team received them."
I waved them to the conference table. They reluctantly sat.
"Where did that kind of credits come from," demanded Amanda. "And why are we getting it? I'm not aware of doing anything that warrants that kind of payment."
"What are you upset about?" I asked.
That stumped them.
"Well not exactly upset," said George. "More like unpreparedly surprised."
I grinned at them.
"Should I take it back?" I asked them.
"Well no," said Aleesha. "Just explain why we received it."
"That’s easy. Its crew shares on what the ship made recently."
"How has the ship made any credits?" asked George.
"You remember those thirteen ships we captured on our way back to Miami?"
They all nodded.
"I sold them. Or more accurately, the Americans bought them."
"What's that got to do with us?" asked Amanda.
"You know, I don’t think we've ever talked about this before. As I said, crew shares."
"What's a crew share?" asked Aleesha.
"You've all been entitled to crew shares since you signed on with me. It's something that all Trader ships use, to give incentive to crews to work for the benefit of the ship, and thus the owner. The better the ship performs, the more everyone gets paid. It works like this." I took a breath before continuing.
"Each time a Trader ship is paid for deliveries, its operating costs, including basic crew wages, are deducted from the profit earned and/or fees it was paid. The owner of the ship specifies what each crew member's percentage of this would be, according to Trading Guild guidelines, if they belong to the Guild. Crew don’t usually get a very big percentage, but over the course of a cruise, it adds up if they do well. It’s a standard practice."
"What does that have to do with us?" asked Amanda.
"The deal I made with Annette, was any hulls she salvaged from her kills, which are subsequently sold, would net her five percent. I'll be selling the Gladiators she salvaged once we get to Sydney, so she has a large payday coming. I have the same deal with 266 squadron."
Send in the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 3) Page 13
