Hero to the End (The Hunter Legacy Book 13)

by Timothy Ellis

  "What are you doing here Jon?"

  "Personal info-dump," I quipped, with a grin.

  "Huh?"

  "Just thinking about the road behind us."

  "Well don’t. We don’t need you depressed again. Get your head looking ahead, and come to bed."

  I let her drag me off.

  Four hours later, Relentless, Redoubt, Fearless, Homer, and Bonko's Club, took up a geostationary orbit above the planet itself, putting us mid-way from all parts of the Torus. We all slept through it, with only Jane up and happening enough to intercept the query from the Torus on our intentions. Jane told them what I'd told her to say.

  She was supervising the removal of stunned crew from the Earth ships, moving them either to the secure holding facility in the center of Borgcubia, or to a holding area on Yorktown, depending on their records. We still needed crew, but not as many of them. Those who had the right attitude and skills, we could use. The rest, including their Admiral and senior Captains, were a liability I could do nothing else but lock up where they couldn’t complain or cause trouble. For the foreseeable future, they would be taken care of by droids, and the only human contact they were getting was themselves.

  We had business here. But I let everyone sleep in. I'd had to actually order BA to take a day off morning training, so everyone would be fresh. Or at least as fresh as we could be.

  Five

  Precisely at nine, every small ship we had launched towards different destinations. I spent a short time convincing Earth Flight Control we were on our way for recreational destinations. It was true there was some sort of recreation facility somewhere close by where each ship was going, but no-one was going to be doing any.

  At nine thirty, we walked into the EarthGov council chamber, while it was in session. Jane followed me into the middle of the room, while the twins, both in combat suits, took places on each side of the door. BA was on the other side, making sure no-one else followed us in uninvited, and the guards stayed down.

  A lot of shouting turned into silence as people noticed my approach. I was tooled up. I was striding inwards. I hadn't been invited.

  The council chamber had two parts. In the one was the Earth system government, and in the other, the representatives from the Earth sector systems. In the middle, was the Chair of both.

  The Chair was an elderly woman. She looked venom at me.

  "You have no business here Hunter. Guards? Why isn’t this man under arrest? How did you even get here Hunter? You were supposed have been arrested yesterday in Wolf."

  There was a chorus of assenting comments, and argument broke out again. The Chair banged a gavel a lot of times, and nothing happened.

  "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I roared.

  This seemed to get their attention.

  "I'm sorry you seem to be under the illusion I was to be arrested. Instead, your fleet's senior officers have all been arrested, and I'm here to ask you what should be an incredibly stupid question."

  "What's your question?" asked the German delegate, before anyone else could deny it to me.

  He took a lot of nasty glances, but no-one had the nerve to try and override his request.

  "Why are you still here?" I asked them.

  "Where else would we be?" asked the Chair.

  "Seriously?" I gave them my best 'you must be joking' look. "The aliens will be in this system in something over four days from now, and you're sitting here arguing about Gaia knows what? What's wrong with you people?"

  "It hasn’t been proved there are aliens," said someone.

  I sighed.

  "And what, pray tell, would have caused all the stations and ships going through here over the last several months, fleeing for their lives?"

  "Gullible people will do anything you want them to," said a man smirking at me.

  "Gullible? Haven't you been watching the vids from the overrun planets?"

  "All proved to be faked," said someone else.

  I looked around at them all. The German delegate was shaking his head with an expression which said he'd tried, and failed. The rest looked like they were about to start arguing again at any second.

  "So you don’t believe there is an alien species invading our space, and eating our people?"

  "Pure fantasy," said the Chair.

  "Carter!" I yelled.

  The doors opened, and Carter came in. A large grav sled followed her, upon which was a large clear case, being pushed by several small cargo droids. Inside it was an alien. This one was undamaged.

  "This is our enemy."

  The reaction ranged from several people fainting, through to outright laughter.

  "Seriously Hunter," said the Chair. "Who'd have guessed you'd go to all the trouble of mocking up the most ridiculous looking alien anyone could possibly think up?"

  "You think this is a mockup?" asked Carter.

  "Who are you?" asked someone.

  "Colonel Carter, Commanding Officer of Hunter Medical. And I assure you, this is a genuine alien, taken from the remains of one of their ships."

  "Is it dead?" asked the German.

  "We don’t know," she answered. "It was frozen solid when we found it, and we've kept it frozen solid. But another one went from frozen solid to alive and hungry inside five minutes, and almost killed one of my people before the Admiral killed it."

  "So they can be killed?" asked the German again.

  "Sure, but not with anything short of a specially modified Meson Blaster."

  "Did Hunter use one of these?"

  "No. And he's the only person who is capable of killing them one on one."

  The laughing started again. I'd hoped it wouldn’t come to this.

  "Colonel," I said, "Turn off the freezer unit. Let's see what happens."

  "What are you doing?" asked the Chair.

  "Doing? You people deny what's in front of you, so let's wake the damn thing up. Once it's eaten a few of you, maybe the rest of you will believe your eyes."

  I nodded to Carter, and she pulled up a Hollo screen everyone could see, and flipped off the very obvious switch on it. I waved her towards the door, and she hurriedly left. The twins closed the doors after her, and then stood in front of them, Meson Blasters pointed at the delegates.

  "Stop!" yelled the Chair. "You'd loose an alien in here deliberately?"

  "Why not? You people are predominantly useless. I can't see losing a few of you being a problem for the billions which get to live, once you decide there is a real threat, and do something about it."

  "We sent our fleet to Wolf 359 just in case."

  "I sent them to the other side of this system."

  "WHAT?" came from various places around the room.

  "Oh, so now you’re worried? Did those of you who thought the situation might be real, also think your fleet could hold them?"

  "Yes," said someone definitively. "The Admiral assured us the new Battleships were more than he needed to keep them bottled up in Paris system if they proved to be real."

  "This is the same Admiral planning to do a suicide run into Paris, with ships so outdated they'd never even get to fire off a shot before being destroyed?"

  "What the hell are you talking about?" yelled someone else at me. "Those ships are state of the art!"

  "Those ships were state of the art ten years ago. The art has evolved a great deal since then. Two of my Dreadnaughts could take six of your Battleships without taking a solid hit themselves. Not to mention the hundred plus Corvettes I command would take out the other six just with a single salvo of torpedoes each."

  There were shocked looks all over the place.

  "Actually, that’s not true. Most of those torpedoes would be wasted."

  I looked the Chair in the eye, and she flinched.

  "I took your fleet without a shot for one reason. They didn’t stand a chance against what is coming, and that’s even with a competent commander, which yours was not. Your ships are going up spine with mine, and will be upgraded as fast as possible. Until the
y are, I won't be allowing them to fight. We've lost too many ships and crews already because of stupid sector Admirals, and their equally stupid civilian governments. I won't allow it again!"

  "You won't allow it? Who do you think you are Hunter?"

  "ADMIRAL Hunter," began Jane in a loud but calm voice, "is the only experienced senior officer this side of the American sector."

  "THAT FUCKING THING MOVED!" yelled someone.

  All eyes became fixed on the alien. It did move. Just a limb twitch, but more than half the people flinched.

  "Get that thing frozen again," said someone.

  "So you believe it's real now?" I asked.

  "Yes," came from a lot of the room.

  "No," came from the rest.

  The German was the first to rise and back away, placing himself near to where the twins were. He was quickly joined by most of the yes people. The rest kept their seats. I nodded to the twins, and they repositioned themselves, so they could cover both the door, and the yes group.

  "Come now delegates," said the Chair, clearly sneering at them. "Are you afraid of a hollo?"

  "Fine," I said, and I walked over to stand in front of the German.

  "How long is this little drama of yours going to go…"

  She screamed, as the alien suddenly came to life and smashed through its containment, leaping in her direction faster than even I thought it could. She fainted, falling completely out of her chair. It saved her life, as the alien jumped clear over her.

  The twins fired immediately, twin white beams clearly hitting it, but it didn’t even seem to notice. The delegates still in their chairs panicked. Jane's hand guns joined in. So did mine.

  The doors burst in, bringing BA and Aline's heavy guns into action, and now with four beams on it, it stopped going after rapidly fleeing people, and turned to face them. It shifted from hairy to slimy, and started to walk towards the combat suits.

  "No BA," I commanded, stopping BA from running at it.

  I holstered my seemingly ineffective guns.

  "Sword," I said quietly, and it appeared on my back.

  I drew it, to a few shocked exclamations behind me, and leapt forward using the suit to boost my leap, timing my sword swing to chop down on the alien as I came close enough. My suit changed to a full protection suit as I leapt, which saved me from injury, my sword cutting into it as several of its legs smashed me across the room, resulting in only a partial cut. It did seem to be enough though. I picked myself up, sword already gone, and went back to the monstrosity. I'd sliced off about two thirds of its head.

  "Carter," I yelled.

  She came in, took in the scene, and started giving orders out the door. A number of medical people came in with cargo droids, and with the whole room watching, the remains were loaded up and shipped out.

  "I want the remaining frozen ones destroyed," I told Carter before she left.

  "You have more of those things?" asked someone.

  "A number of them, yes. We're still trying to figure out how to kill them, so we took a chance on some of the frozen ones still being alive, to use as test subjects."

  I turned to BA.

  "Why didn’t the guns work?"

  "I've no idea boss. Four of them should have at least stopped it."

  "Full light in here?" suggested Aleesha.

  "Could be it," said Aline. "We did better in full dark."

  "Work on it," I said.

  "Are you quite satisfied with your demonstration Hunter?" asked the Chair, now revived and retaking her seat, as were others.

  "ADMIRAL Hunter," barked BA.

  A lot of people flinched.

  "What do you want of us?" asked the German quickly.

  "Nothing," I said. "It's already too late."

  "Too late for what?" asked the Chair.

  "For you people to make a decision about anything, and get it acted on."

  "There are still motions before the Chair for actions to be taken."

  "You still want to debate issues?"

  "Of course. How else would the best decisions be made?"

  Four combat suits face-palmed. It would have been funny at any other time.

  Fortunately, there wasn’t any need to answer. Some very solid thunks came from different directions, and they vibrated through the floor of the chamber.

  I pulled up a series of hollo screens everyone could see.

  "What's going on?" asked the German, trying really hard to hide a smile, and failing.

  "This body is officially dissolved," I said. "As you can see, the Torus is being dismantled as we speak. Each section will be given its own station tugs, and the whole lot will be on its way up spine by the end of the day."

  "By what authority do you disband us?" asked the Chair.

  "You disbanded yourselves. With the Torus broken up into station sized chunks, each station will need to form its own temporary government. Once you get to Outback, you'll be told what happens next."

  "How dare you!"

  "How dare I? For fucks sake woman! You've had months to get this system evacuated, and you've done nothing. All you seem to care about is your own power, not the people you're supposed to represent. This system should have been empty weeks ago. Or is the deaths of billions of people not something you care about at all?"

  There was silence.

  "Oh, by the way, the Earth System Chief of Police has known about a lot of your private plans for moving up spine should the Wolf 359 system be lost. Your ships have been confiscated, and will be used to help evacuate people off planets as we go up spine. Those of you planning to escape will be arrested as you leave this room. Most of the rest of you are now private citizens of this chunk of the Torus. You can expect your living spaces to be reduced, and people allocated to them on a needs basis. If you have a problem with this, take it up with the Police Chief. And just so you know, he's taking his orders from my Chief of Security, who used to work for him."

  I looked around the room.

  "Who are the representatives of the Corporate sector, and those for the Arab systems?"

  They were pretty easy to spot. But they raised hands anyway.

  "There is nowhere near enough traffic flowing out of your space. You have a week tops before your jump points to the spine are lost to the aliens. Go. Get your people out of there before it's too late."

  They left. I nodded to the German, and he left as well, taking with him all the delegates for systems further up the spine.

  "Thank you my friend," I pinged him.

  He nodded as he went past. He'd been a plant, sticking around only because I'd asked his government for help. The Israeli delegate had been the obvious choice, but their delegate was at home helping to organize their evacuation. I didn’t blame them. Theirs had not been the only empty seats. The really practical systems were already moving, and waiting for us to arrive to help them complete their move.

  The screens were showing sections of the Torus moving away from the planet, as station tugs pushed them out of orbit in a carefully planned sequence, which only Jane had the capacity to keep safe. Once well away from the gravity well, they would be connected up like a ladder, actually a series of ladders, and start their journey to Outback.

  I stood there watching Gatherer land on the Moon, and connect docking tubes to warren airlocks. The stations around Earth were already gone. The domes on other planets and outer system moons were being visited by the other evacuation ships already.

  By the end of the day, I wanted the system clear of civilians. This was perhaps the easiest system to evacuate of all of them. While the most people lived here, only a small percent were not on the Torus or a station.

  I'd been planning this for a year, ever since I'd left here the last time. One of Dick Burnside's responsibilities had been getting the local police on side. It hadn't been hard, especially when D-Jane had provided the Chief with evidence of the worst blockers in the government, all preparing to be able to leave at a moment's notice. It hadn't been legal
, but then, the court system was going to be their next target as soon as EarthGov arrests began. I'd be getting a report from Dick in due course, since his target had been the worst of the corrupt judges.

  Madame Chair was duly arrested, giving me a look of pure hatred in the process. I grinned at her. Then forgot all about all of them.

  I still had a decision to make.

  Six

  I mulled things over through lunch. No-one spoke to me, mainly because very few people were on Relentless at the time. Those who were could see my mind was elsewhere. Angel came looking for me, but couldn’t get much reaction out of me, and took herself off somewhere else.

  After eating, I withdrew into my Ready Room, and studied the nav map. We no longer had a full coverage of systems. I could still see all the way down the spine to Famine, but this was only because we'd laid a special set of comnavsats as we went, high enough off the main ship routes, and far enough away from the jump points, to avoid detection while still being useful. None of the normal ones had survived in any system off the spine systems.

  There was no traffic at the Famine War jump point. Nor was there any inside the Last Hope system at all.

  The aliens were no longer coming from their home system. The conclusion was obvious.

  They were breeding on our planets.

  There was a lot of traffic going from Morocco to both jump points up spine. A huge amount of traffic was joining the spine in Brazil and Egypt.

  What scared me the most, was although they were slow to move across space, and what we saw at the jump points initially never seemed to change much, what was coming behind was a totally different matter.

  Their numbers were growing exponentially. As I’d feared, they had to be reproducing on our planets, and each planet we lost multiplied how fast they could reproduce.

  I was becoming scared of slowing them down too much now. Because the more we delayed them, the larger the number there was they could hit us with. As you went back system by system, the numbers of alien ships in the system increased. Especially from Egypt on. I asked Jane to crunch some numbers, and she figured out we were merely a week to ten days ahead of more than we could handle.