Hunter's Terminus

by Timothy Ellis

  "Sweep and secure," ordered Annabelle.

  "In progress."

  "George?"

  "Yes boss?"

  "Take the hulk in tow. I'll have Syrinx open a rift back to the shipyards for you. Drop it off for Bob, and come back."

  "Consider it done."

  "You want…" started Jane.

  "Yes."

  "Confirmed."

  A super corvette undocked from Redoubt, the HUD informing me it was Tenacious. The original captured plant ship was released, Tenacious picked up the tow, and by the time Syrinx had a rift open, she and Custer were both ready to go through. Both ships vanished, the grey box remained, and some minutes later, they both returned.

  Salvage droids launched from all ships, and began to gather up all the debris.

  "What do you intend doing with those ships?" asked Arthur.

  "Strip them down," said Jane quickly. "I want to know the science behind the tech. So we can upgrade our own. We need to level the playing field if we're going to survive here."

  "Level the playing field?" blurted Roo. "After what we just saw?"

  "What do you think you saw?" I asked him, also looking at Hobbes and Arthur.

  "I saw two ships pull their punches, while destroying an entire fleet. While a third did nothing at all."

  I looked at the other two. They both nodded.

  "No, you didn't. You saw two ships out of thirty, capable of defending a jump point from a fleet, without being in serious danger. There are any number of scenarios where the rest of the fleet would be wiped out by good tactics, or worn down by constant attacks and an inability to recharge fast enough. It is pure dumb luck we have the titans."

  Actually it wasn’t. All things are connected, and while we needed them for the Darkness War, I had no illusions the highers who messed with things back then, also knew they would be needed after the war. And could have removed them before sending us here, had we been over-powered having them. But the fact we did still have them, meant we had something which could help us survive long enough to get in the game properly.

  Dick Burnside had made a good point when he first saw the titans in action. He'd said no government would ever allow ships like these to be built by anyone else. And yet they had been built, albeit in total secrecy. And that was one thing I now had to keep guarding. If any of the three powers found out we had these ships, destroying them or taking them would become the number one goal for an entire empire.

  I looked at the three of them.

  "Why are we facing mainly ships of what we call a battlecruiser size?"

  Hobbes and Roo started laughing. Arthur caught my eye, a grin forming.

  "Have you seen these guys?"

  He had a point. They were bigger than us, and Roo had to watch his head going through doorways. Hobbes more often than not walked on all fours, so avoided the same problem. But they were both big beings, so a larger ship would still have the same or even less decks than ours did. And the plants seemed to be a similar size as well.

  "So the destroyers we saw are in fact just scouts?"

  "Yes," said Hobbes. "And the mainstay ships in our fleets are destroyers for us."

  "So the plant battleships were really a cruiser?"

  "Also yes," said Roo.

  I let the next question hang there unasked, wondering if they would figure it out and give an answer anyway. They didn’t.

  "Do you have battleships?"

  The tiger and the roo looked at each other, perhaps wondering if they were giving too much away to the other side. Roo shrugged, and the tiger gave a soft growl. Both turned back to me.

  "Yes," they both said together.

  "So do the plants," added Arthur, "but they rarely show up here. Any of them."

  "Why is that?" asked Annabelle.

  "Because the system on the other side there is a deathtrap. As soon as a fleet jumps in, the others jump in, and they throw missiles at each other until someone backs off, or is destroyed." He looked at me. "Yesterday you upset the balance, and introduced an unstable element into a stable situation which had been that way for centuries. It's why I use that system. Civilian ships like mine are usually let through. It was the Trixone refugee ship which was causing the trouble, but I figured we'd get one of the other powers to let us in once I was in coms range and could argue their case. Might have taken letting them board, but I'd have got them through."

  Jane perked up, but I cut her off.

  "So we'll now likely see these battleships come here?"

  "Almost definitely," said Hobbes. "Hard to say when, but if conflict goes on long enough, you could see a real battle fleet arrive. Or three of them."

  Which was a very sobering thought.

  Twenty Six

  "Movement," announced Jane, effectively shutting down the conversation, without I thought, the main point having been made.

  All eyes went to the navmap.

  The two scout destroyers were back.

  "Arthur and Jane, will you join me in my ready room please."

  I rose and walked over to the door, going through without looking back. By the time I sat behind my desk, Jane was closing the door behind them. I waved them both to seats.

  "I take it you want those two plant ships?" I asked Arthur.

  "Thinking about it. There are a lot of places where refugees exist in Trixone space, and with more ships, I could get more people out. Using their own ships might make it easier to slip through."

  Or it might not. But I could see why he'd think so.

  "Do you have a proper translator for all four of the languages?"

  "Of course."

  Jane was shooting glances at both of us.

  "We need one, especially if you also have our language in it as well."

  Jane nodded emphatically, reinforcing my opinion she'd been having a hard time making one. Arthur nodded as well, causing Jane to grin.

  "We appear to have the beginnings of trade."

  "We already had that," said Arthur. "My people want your belt suits, among other things. And talking of trade, we need to discuss the refugees, and how they pay for the food and things you've already provided them."

  "No charge for the food. I guess we need to get some representatives together, and find out what they want to do. There are planets here we can't use ourselves. Haven is practically empty. If there are techs among them, we could use some expertise in adapting weapons and shields. We could use miners as well. And who knows what else they can offer."

  "I'll talk to them now. I want to head out again as soon as Round Table is repaired. There's a few back routes through Ralnor space which will get me back into Trixone space. I need to see what happened to the system we left."

  "Are they going to let you in?"

  "Should do. We piss them off every now and again, but we've always been able to smooth fur and leaves after. Part of it is knowing what goodies to carry for bribes."

  I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was.

  "Fine. Find out what the refugees would prefer to do. If I can accommodate them, I will. But we don’t have any kind of government yet. So if they stay, they may find something is put into place they won't like. Also come back to me with anything you want, and what you’re prepared to trade for it. Put the interpreter on the top of the list you can trade, and supply of suits for your crew on the top of what we can trade. I'm not letting go of the tech, but we can make suits easily enough for you. Other things too. And I don’t know what weapons you carry, but our fighters need a serious upgrade if they're ever to launch again."

  "I'll get on with it."

  He rose, nodded to Jane, and left.

  "I take it you’re not making much progress?"

  "Some, but not enough. The data is all there, but even the specs for things are unreadable. I'll break it eventually, but buying it would be quicker."

  I laughed.

  "For a moment I thought you were going to say stealing was quicker."

  "It is, but I think we
have a good opportunity here to make some friends. I’d rather not blow it."

  "Agreed. Start making a list of what we can trade. And see if you can find out what sort of credit systems are used around here. I suspect the refugees have funds, but none of it is going to be any use to us, unless we can convert it somehow."

  We needed to make a brand new economy, and this was not something I was looking forward to doing. But Jane was nodding.

  "Anything else?" she asked me.

  "Get David thinking about an economy."

  "Already have."

  "I know we have a bank, but we need a way of establishing exchange rates. And I guess there's a whole heap of bank related issues I've not even thought of yet, to do with aliens."

  "Also in progress."

  "Did you get a vid of the entire battle?"

  "Yes. All it shows is the ships being hit and destroyed. Nothing is visible about what hit them. And I edited it to make it look like the last ship was also destroyed."

  "Anything there to give the impression we have anything larger than BigMother?"

  "I don’t think so. At best I think they'd conclude we have more of the ship class, and probably assume we have at least half a dozen of them, plus smaller ships like they already saw."

  "So it's worth sending?"

  "It’s a risk, but it could be worth it."

  The opportunity to make the tigers and roos think twice about trying to take us, was too good to let slide. But it was risky, in terms of they might consider us worth the challenge, or demonstrating being as weak as they thought we were.

  I opened up a vid.

  "This is Admiral Hunter. The Trixone fleet which attacked us a short time ago, has been completely destroyed. They did not get a shot off at us, and troubled us not at all. We don't want a war with anyone. We would like a truce so diplomatic talks may begin. But if you jump into our system uninvited, you will be destroyed. We are not your enemies, but we are not yet friends. I made a point of not destroying your flagship completely, in order to defuse the situation so we can still talk. I'm sending you a vid of the destruction of the Trixone fleet, as both proof we are still here, and as a warning about not doing the same as they have. I look forward to a diplomatic response. Hunter out."

  "Jane, get Arthur to convert the message and the battle vid, ready to send. Lacey can jump through, send it to both destroyers, and jump back again. If we don’t get an immediate military response, we'll send a destroyer through to act as a coms point the same as they are. For now, I don’t want them realizing we have coms and nav capability without having a ship in there."

  "Confirmed."

  A half hour later, BigMother jumped out, Lacey sent off the messages, flipped the ship end to end, and jumped back, taking up his previous station.

  We got a military response.

  Twenty Seven

  Six hours later we did it all again.

  The Keerah must have taken my vid as a challenge, because they jumped in a fleet almost immediately. The Ralnor destroyer jumped out after the first four ships appeared, and a volley of missiles started heading towards it.

  Something had been nagging at the back of my mind, and it became clear at this point. All three species had as good or better sensors as we did. When you're firing missiles towards something it would take you five or six hours to get there yourself, you have to be able to see what you're aiming at. Not to mention fast missiles, with long ranges. Ours seemed to be as fast, but didn’t have the legs, or the thump factor. Another thing to get Jane to look at.

  The tigers seemed to like lines of six for their battlecruiser sized ships, but only managed four abreast for the battleship size. Our sizes, not theirs. And two rows of battleships. Damnit, I was going to have to adapt. Two rows of Keerah cruisers, followed by two rows of destroyers, for a total of twenty ships. Unlike the plants, they were sending in the bigger ships first, and the whole fleet was tightly clustered.

  Six hours is a long time to prepare though, and I let Susan Bentley do most of the brainstorming, on the basis she might one day have to do it herself.

  In the meantime, I met with a spokesperson for the refugees. Which turned out to be pretty useless without Tanith being present to provide translation. This was going to get old very quickly if Arthur wouldn’t let us have the translator they used.

  The being doing the talking for the refugees looked a bit like fictional dwarves, only with a dog like face, and no beard. The refugees themselves were apparently from over a dozen species, and I put off learning about them for the time being. He, and I was guessing at this point, expressed a desire to try living on one of my stations, since they had all lived in space for most of their lives. They were prepared to work, but we didn’t get as far as finding out what work would suit, and if we had any for them.

  Within an hour, Syrinx opened another rift to Haven, and the refugee ship went through, now to be David and Walter's problems.

  Bob Derr turned up after they all left. A rotund individual with an irrepressible sense of humour, Bob had owned Sydney shipyard outright, and technically still did. Sometime we'd need to work out how much was his, and how much mine.

  "Priorities?" he asked before even sitting down.

  "How far are you with reassembling things?"

  "Nearly complete. I can take anything up to battleship size at the moment. The dreadnaught bays are still in progress, and if you want a new titan, we'll need to make a new bay from scratch."

  "Arthur wants to buy one." His jaw dropped open. "But for now, he'll have to wait, as the longer it takes for anyone out there to know we have that size of ship, the longer we go without having galactic target one tattooed on our butts."

  "What do you want me doing? The mining station is working at full capacity, and the freighters are delivering everything I need."

  "As soon as Jane and any of the tech people we have can figure out shield and gun upgrades, I'll want every ship cycled through as fast as possible. You can start with the Explorer ships and the two escort carriers. Put at least battleship turrets on them, and plenty of capital ship missiles. Everything gets as many Mosquito missile launchers as they can, and we'll need them if we leave this little pocket of space."

  "Plans are in the works now. You want your father to have much say in the design changes?"

  "Yes. He knows the Explorers better than anyone. For now though, just external changes. We may yet have a need for refugee evac ships. So leave the internals alone, although if they need upgrading, you can do that."

  "What do you need here?"

  "Any of the titan station sections freed up by any chance?"

  "Three so far. Might be able to swing a fourth. You want to use the titan turrets?"

  "Until we can upgrade the guns, the titans are the only sure thing we have other than missiles. Can you make two more Sceptre class ships out of the four sections? They don’t need more than crew space for half a dozen people. No, say ten. Captain and three shifts of three."

  "You sure you want ships? The station sections as they are will give you the firepower, and I'm sure Jane will be happy to control them."

  "I’d rather have the ships. For now, we can hold our own. Ships may take longer, but will be more useful later on. But talking about stations, we need a battlestation we can mass produce. Completely AI run, and just comprising big guns, missile launchers, and point defense. I was thinking maybe three of them to guard a jump point. Maybe make them modular as well, so they can be stacked."

  I paused and thought some more.

  "Can you put a titan turret on both ends of Redoubt? Move the eight battleship turrets and everything else around it or on it, and duplicate to the other end as well?"

  "Doable. I can take turrets from a station, or make new ones using the dreadnaught bays."

  "Use the bays. If the worst happens here, I want the rest of those stations there to protect Haven. Make the new titans first, upgrade Redoubt second. Design and build station module bays third."

>   I paused again, having a new thought pop in.

  "Would it be possible to modify the new titans to have internal bays for Corvettes and Destroyers? So while a proper battle ship, they could also be small capital ship carriers. We have the ships, but no way to safely have them in a battle. Be nice if we could do the same thing as Orion, but for up to super-destroyer size. Maybe be able to poke them far enough out of the bays during combat so they can fire from within the titan's shields?"

  "Doable, but what about the power source? We only have four of the crystals if you recall."

  "Do what you can. With luck over the next few days, we'll learn a whole lot about power sources we had no idea about before. And shield emitters."

  "Already on those. And you're right. My shield techs started drooling the moment they got on board one of the plant ships. Work in progress young Jon. Anything else I can do for you?"

  "Any spare smaller ship bays?"

  "Sure. What do you want?"

  "Missile platforms. As many as you can get me, as fast as possible. The missile cruisers fire fifty at a time, but we needed two hundred per ship. Overkill maybe, but apparently they do have battleships something like the length of Redoubt." He gulped. "So as they scale up what they send at us, I need to scale up the response. The ships can only handle so much. But expendable missile platforms in numbers could make all the difference. I want to be able to fire a thousand missiles in a salvo if I need to, and keep firing them for hours on end."

  It was ironic, but the original Midgard missile cruisers were what I needed now. They fired two hundred capital ship missiles in a salvo. Unfortunately, the design was totally impractical, which is why my version only fired fifty.

  "Which reminds me," I went on.

  "You want me to look at the plant missiles, and see what you can do for ours?"

  "Yes, and see what Arthur will let you look at as well. He and Jane are compiling lists of what we can trade, and his weapons and shield tech should be on the list. But someone needs to look at it to see if it will be any use to us first."

  He rubbed his hands together and grinned.