Hunter's Terminus

by Timothy Ellis

  "Salvage droids?" asked Jane.

  "Yes. Collect everything possible, and take it back to the other side of the jump point. And advise Bob we're going to need the shipyard up and running a lot sooner than planned."

  Bob Derr was our shipyard manager. I still wasn’t sure how much of it he actually owned, since the core had once been Sydney Shipyard, and his personal domain. The Darkness War changed everything though. But one thing was for sure, we had to update our weapons tech, or we'd be in serious trouble when all three species brought back much larger fleets.

  "Confirmed."

  The salvage droids went out. They used the same grav sled as we used for towing, but each one had a droid to control it, and an engine module to propel it around. Given enough time, they would sweep the entire system clean, and bring back all the debris for analysis.

  "The carrier wants to talk to us," said Jane, and I nodded towards the main screen.

  A bridge appeared, very different looking to our own, but with only a half dozen people on it. Five were sitting, and one standing. The latter was looking around what he could see, the same as I was.

  His mouth opened, but before he could say anything, his face registered surprise. He was looking past me.

  "Where the fuck have you been, Merlin?" he yelled.

  Seven

  I didn’t see this coming on several counts.

  The three of us whipped our heads around to see who was being called Merlin, and found Thirteen sitting there with a smug look on his face. Our four alien friends also looked, and they all seemed amused, although there was no apparent recognition of the name.

  It took a few seconds longer for me to recognize the speaker wasn't using a translator, wasn’t using the magic in place, and this was the kicker, had a British accent.

  My head whipped back around again. The man was grinning now.

  "Well?" he demanded, still looking at Thirteen. "It's been fifty bloody years since we last saw you. Where have you been?"

  Jane popped up a monitor in front of me, so I could see Thirteen without having to turn back again. He was looking like the Cheshire cat now.

  "Oh, around. You know. Universe to save, and all that."

  In spite of the screen in front of me, I did twist around to see Thirteen again. His accent had changed to British as well.

  "You have something to tell us Thirteen?" I heard myself saying.

  "No, no. But I guess I should introduce you all."

  He rose, and came down to stand by my chair. He indicated me.

  "Admiral Jon Hunter, meet Arthur."

  "As in King Arthur?" asked Annabelle, looking bewildered.

  The man over there nodded, although he looked early middle aged. Considering the legend of King Arthur went back to the middle ages, and sometimes earlier, he was either a time traveler, or not who Thirteen claimed him to be. Unfortunately, Thirteen did time travel, so anything was possible.

  "You don’t look old enough to be several thousand years old," I said.

  "Yeah," added Grace. "Pull the other one, it's got bells on."

  "You don’t look old enough to be an Admiral either, sonny."

  "Touché. Wasn’t my fault, people kept upping my rank."

  "Wasn’t my fault either. They made me king."

  "Jon is a Duke," said Annabelle.

  "Was a Duke," I corrected.

  "Was a King," corrected Arthur. "And damned glad to shuck that off. And it wasn’t several thousand years ago, it was closer to twenty five thousand."

  "You don’t look a day over forty," muttered Grace, and all of them on the other ship laughed.

  I didn't believe him for a second, but also didn't doubt he had been there when he said he did. If nothing else, his accent was too British for so long ago. But for now, I let it go.

  "Looks are deceiving young lady. Earth is not our home planet, and never was. Merlin was responsible for us being there."

  "And the legend built up around you?"

  "Presumably. How is the old dirtball?"

  "Uninhabitable," I said.

  "When did that happen?"

  "About three hundred years ago. But humans spread out along the arm long before then."

  "How do you come to be here, now?"

  "Long story. Who are the refugees?"

  "Mixture of species from a system inside Trixone space. We managed to get them off a station before it was hit and destroyed."

  Trixone was presumably the local name for the plants. I let it pass for now.

  "Where were you heading with them?"

  "Wherever someone would take them. We're on good terms with both the Keerah and the Ralnor. The big hoppers took our last lot."

  Roo frowned. I guess being called a big hopper wasn’t considered an endearing comment.

  "Why were these Trixone shooting at you?"

  He'd nodded at my pronunciation of the name.

  "Outstayed our welcome I guess."

  His crew were grinning.

  "And what do you want to do with them now?"

  "Get them somewhere safe. And for all the damage you did here today, I don’t consider you safe. Yonder jump point isn’t charted, but now everyone knows about it, they will all want whatever you have on the other side."

  "They won't get it."

  "You won't hold the jump point with ships like this. Impressive for humans, I've got to admit that. But everyone knows the humans in this galaxy are way behind in tech development."

  "I think you'll find that’s changed recently."

  "I doubt it. I can see two of the human variants sitting with you. Neither of them even have a fleet."

  I looked over at Tanith, and our eyes met. He moved his eyes to Arthur, then to a spot in front of my chair. I gave him the smallest of nods.

  Arthur appeared in front of me, looking startled. His eyes went to Thirteen, but he was shaking his head emphatically, and pointing at Tanith. The two of them exchanged glances, and Arthur looked back at me.

  "Has Merlin been teaching these two magic tricks?"

  "We met him a week ago," grated Syrinx, who looked offended. "And no man teaches us anything."

  Arthur held his hands up in a surrender gesture, while grinning.

  "I've heard the stories of the three human groups with magic," he admitted.

  "Three?" asked Tanith.

  "Why yes. There's another group of planets with humans on them in Keerah space, who have a few magic users. The Keerah leave them alone. But the stories of encounters with them still circulate."

  I frowned. I was pretty certain who he was referring to, but Annabelle and Grace hadn't met him. Besides, if it was him, he was probably dead by now.

  "Come with us," I said to Arthur. "I've a fleet and a station on the other side of the jump point, and you can judge if it's safe to stay with us or not. At the least, we can feed you and your refugees, and decide what to do next."

  "Prepare to fight again is what we do next, but we do need to recharge first. And the other side is a much better defensive position."

  "Indeed. Shall we put you back on your ship, or will you get them to follow us?"

  "Stay there Arthur," said a man on the other bridge. "We'll follow."

  I opened a channel to my other ships.

  "George?"

  "Boss? Is he really who he says he is?"

  "Check the navmap for the ship name," suggested Jane.

  There was a pause, followed by a snort.

  "Round Table? Seriously?"

  "Seriously," said Arthur.

  "Orders boss?"

  "Tow the plant ship through George, and re-dock on the other side. Jane can get it docked with Redoubt when you're close. We'll follow. Round Table and the refugee ship next. Annette and Miriam bring up the rear."

  "On it," said George.

  "No problem," said Annette.

  I closed the channel, and nodded to Jane. BigMother took an around about course to avoid the other ships, and Jane pushed us through the jump point
a few minutes later.

  Arthur was standing behind Grace as we jumped, idly scratching Angel behind one ear. She seemed to like it, and him.

  He took in the sight on the other side, and turned back to me.

  "You do indeed have a story to tell us. And yes, now I feel safe."

  Eight

  "Slice to Hunter?"

  "Yes John?"

  "Now seems like a good time to survey the next system, before anyone comes back."

  "Go, take Unassailable with you, but don’t leave the vicinity of this jump point. You jump back at the first ship jumping in, and leave the drones to come back on their own. Leave your Gunbus and Explorer ships here. It's way too dangerous in there for them."

  "You make some pilots unhappy, but I concur. Eric and Jessie are coordinating the outer survey here, so all I need is Unassailable's drones. Be back in a while. Slice out."

  He had Apricot One and Unassailable lined up near the jump point, and we were already past. On the navmap, both ships vanished very quickly, and appeared where we'd just left. Several thousand white dots appeared, and fanned out to cover the whole, albeit small, system.

  Arthur was looking at me with a questioning look.

  "John Slice is a civilian, running the Apricot Mapping Service. His cruiser, and my battleship Unassailable, are drone carriers. He's very good at finding jump points no-one knew were there. The drones are Jane's design, using some of his tech."

  "I've been going through that system for centuries, and didn’t know there was a fourth jump point."

  Jane popped up the system map as a hollo cube. It showed where we were, and it wasn't on the normal plain of the system. This was a bog standard system, with no habitable planets, and two jump points. One in the standard position back towards where we started from, and the other was well above the plain and two thirds around the sun.

  "We've had a lot of practice looking for them. A lot has happened in the last two years."

  "Where are we headed? I'd like my people to hear this story as soon as possible."

  I pointed off to one side. We were still in the down jump lane, since I had an entire fleet laid out in a defensive position around it. Arthur had given it all a quick look, but hadn't commented, other than his initial feeling safer one.

  "What the hell is that?" he went on.

  "Hunter's Redoubt. Used to be two stations, but I had them joined. One had battleship guns, and the other was seriously over shielded. Together, they make a station which can act as a battleship class carrier. Depending on what is going on, it's my forward deployment station, but it does at times act as a Behemoth class ship."

  "Ship? That’s a ship? Next you're going to tell me those boxes out there are also ships."

  "Titan class."

  He gave me a speculative look.

  "Things have changed. I keep in touch with seers who've kept me up to date with all the humanoid species, but none of them have seen any of this."

  "We did," interjected Syrinx, still sounding annoyed.

  "Us too," added Tanith.

  "Glad you did," I said, grinning at them. "Otherwise none of us would be here at all."

  Speculative had become puzzled. I turned my grin on him.

  "Your people will need to shuttle over to Redoubt. We'll meet them there."

  He nodded, slid his sleeve up to reveal what looked like a computer on his arm, and started tapping at it. When the sleeve was back in place, he saw our three grins.

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Communicator or computer?"

  "Both."

  "Thought so. How do your ship guns compare to the Trixone's?"

  He looked thrown by the change in subject, but recovered quickly.

  "About on par with them and the Keerah. Not quite as good as the hopper over there. Why?"

  "Hobbes and Roo arrived with nothing but what’s in their heads. Likewise our magical friends. They hadn't anticipated it being a one way trip. You bring us something we can trade for."

  "What makes you think you have something we'd want?"

  I tapped the side of my nose, and pointed at the view. He turned to look, and seemed to be captivated by the now close up Redoubt. While he was distracted, I sub-vocalized some instructions to Jane.

  Jane brought BigMother to a stop, and I rose. The others followed. Syrinx offered my staff back to me.

  "I assume you want this back?"

  She seemed a bit reluctant to part with it. Understandably.

  "Thanks."

  I took it from her, it turned into a sword in my hand, and I slid it into the scabbard on my back, which promptly vanished. I tapped the side of my nose again, forestalling Arthur from asking a question.

  "Where to?" asked Syrinx.

  "Main conference room."

  She nodded, and a door sized area of grey appeared. She stepped straight through it. I waved Annabelle and Grace through, waited while our four alien friends followed, and finally motioned for Arthur to step through. He did, and I followed behind him.

  I stepped out into the main conference room on Redoubt. Jane followed me out, and we both headed for the head of the table.

  "Do you need us Jon?" asked Annabelle.

  "No, but we won't be here long. If you want to take the team through to Haven, we'll catch up with you there."

  She waved, and the two of them left.

  "Do you need us?" asked Hobbes.

  "Not right now."

  He and the other three also left. I'd barely seated myself, with Jane on my right and Arthur on my left, when people started arriving.

  Nine

  I waited for everyone to sit, somewhat amused by where they sat.

  The meeting was all military. The higher ranks sat next to Jane, where they could face Arthur, while the lower ranks left an empty chair between them on his side. I held my grin in, and turned to the people next to Jane.

  "I think you all know why you're here?"

  "No retirement after all?" suggested Bigglesworth.

  Arthur reacted slightly to his British accent.

  "Sorry, no."

  "Good," said Jedburgh.

  There was a general laugh, which quickly went serious again.

  "You honestly didn’t expect to retire when you decided to join Jon before the Gaia jump point closed, did you?"

  Jane sounded puzzled, and Jane puzzled was a problem. I upped the priority on talking to her alone.

  "Hell no," said Harriman. "I expected to be job done right dead. But since we aren’t, and the highers have dropped us in deep shit again, no, retirement doesn’t seem to be an option."

  "What do you need from us?" asked Wellington.

  I looked around the group, before ending with Arthur, and pointed a finger at him.

  "This is Arthur Pen…"

  "Just Arthur," he interrupted. "My people don’t use ranks, and I've had so many names I've never kept up with any of them." He looked at me. "I'm actually not sure why I'm here."

  "Hospitality mostly. One leader to another, and not leaving you hanging while you wait for your people to get here. Besides, I thought you might like to assess my high command, while you’re assessing our ships and tech."

  "You noticed, did you?"

  "Pretty obvious," muttered Jane.

  Most of them smiled, but I kept mine in. I had Arthur hooked on very light line, and I was playing him gently, before I reeled him in.

  "I know we'd all like to hear your story Arthur, but we'll save it for later, when others can hear it. We'll update you and your people at the same time. In the meantime, I'll introduce you as we go. It's been a week since our last war ended, and only a few days more before the fleet we had fighting it split into two. So at the moment we're in exploration mode, with most of our remaining higher ranks basically on vacation."

  A few of them appeared to be holding a laugh in, and were shaking their heads. I indicated Jane.

  "Jane carries the rank of Fleet Admiral, which is one star. She is part of everything,
which is why she's here. Next to her is Marshal Bigglesworth, with four stars. James, I need you to high end everything to do with carriers and fighters."

  "I figured as much. First challenge will be upgrading our fighters to actually survive?"

  "Yeah. I'm glad I didn’t take any. Even the Gunbus class couldn’t survive the fight we just had."

  "Gunbus?" asked Arthur.

  "Corvette class with fighter capability. Actually, all my ships have fighter capability, but fighter pilots tend to want small ships, not large ones."

  I could see Lacey opening his mouth to speak, but didn’t let him. I went on to Bigglesworth.

  "We need Bob in on some design sessions. And maybe Arthur's people might like to give us some tips on improving our emitters. You can base yourself where you want."

  "Haven is probably best. If you don’t mind, I'll take over a section of the Australian military tower. Assuming Walter doesn’t mind."

  He grinned at Walter sitting next to him.

  "Walter doesn’t mind," he replied. "The Australian military doesn’t exist anymore. But I will be retaining my existing office setup and quarters."

  "General Walter Harriman," I introduced, "with four stars. Walter, we're going to need military logistics and an administrator, and you did run the Australian military for a long time. Up for it?"

  "Seeing as I'm the only administrative general who didn’t go to Gaia, I guess I'm it by default. Do I assume we have a full on war coming?"

  We all looked at Arthur. He shrugged.

  "By tomorrow, the next system will be a full on war zone. Whoever survives each clash, will try coming through here. If you’re not ready, we can all kiss our arses goodbye."

  Sobering thought. Walter didn’t even blink.

  "I'll get people moving as soon as we leave here."

  "Next to Walter is Admiral Jedburgh. Again, four stars, and once a member of the American joint chiefs. Darius, I need you to be fleet controller. But again, you can base anywhere you want."

  "I'll take another office and quarters in the newly designated military tower."