The three Titans, with just our forward facing front armament activated, sat outside the fleet deployment. I was holding us back as a reserve. Orion had half her pilots on standby in their ships, but the outer doors were still closed. The smaller ships were in place around her, but they were all pointing off into space.
I gave it another hour, and without any change, I had Lacey stand down his pilots to having a third of them waiting to mount up, a third in the ready rooms, and the other third stood down and trying to sleep. I suggested to Hallington he do the same with his, leaving a third of them in space, a third in the ready rooms, and a third getting some sleep. We'd been rotating the squadrons like this already, so making the change was easy.
Four days passed.
"Houston, we have a problem."
"What sort, how bad?
I was alone in the CCC, attending to emails. Jane was in her usual place.
"They worked it out."
"Damn. I was hoping for a lot longer than this. Show me."
The navmap expanded to show the other side of the jump point. Away from the cylinder, which was still pushing through the jump point as fast as they could go, there was another structure forming from the streams coming from the other three jump points.
"Give me a tactical representation of the new structure and the diameter of the Sphere."
Jane overlaid it for me.
"Okay, we have time. Monitor it. The moment it moves towards the jump point, or grows bigger than the Sphere's internal diameter, yell loudly."
"Confirmed."
"Show me the Egypt jump points."
"That's not good."
"And the rest of the system?"
"Worse."
I sighed. It was an understatement. Each jump point had multiple masses, all heading up spine. But in the middle of the system, there were dozens of them.
"Step us back up the spine."
The systems flashed up one by one, but progressively became faster and faster, and suddenly too fast for me to see.
"And?"
"They figured it out. Every system looks like Egypt."
"Which one did they figure out?"
"How to exceed the jump pipe limit. I think. Might have been they finally realized we have a fleet here which is destroying everything they send through immediately it appears on this side, and it's triggered a need to up their game. Until now, they haven't needed to."
"So once a response was decided on, they executed it everywhere?"
"Looks like it."
"Are all of them growing at the same rate?"
There was a pause.
"Pretty much."
"Keep monitoring. Get Jedburgh and Bentley for me."
"Confirmed."
Both of them popped up as hollo's, before either realized they were on one.
"We have a situation developing," I said.
Both of them jumped, and turned to face me fully.
"What's happening?" asked Jedburgh.
"Show them Jane."
"Confirmed."
"What am I looking at?" asked Susan.
"The first major flaw in the Sphere idea," I responded.
"How so?"
"If they jump in a solid mass bigger than the diameter of the sphere, it'll be destroyed."
"Will they?" asked Jedburgh.
"Not yet. With luck, the first few attempts will be too small, and only the shielding will be stressed. But I have to assume as each attempt fails, they will continue to up the size until it doesn’t."
"There's another mass forming half an hour out from the first, and building while it travels. More coming from each jump point into Bermuda."
"What do you want to do?" asked Jedburgh.
"Was there a plan for this?"
"We're still working on it. We only found out about the flaw when you mentioned it. Do what you think is best Jon."
"Susan, get all captains in their chairs. I want everything moved. Keep the configuration as it is, but open it out."
"How much?"
"Assume a mass which is just bigger than the Sphere, and put the first defense layer at longest Destroyer guns range from it, with everyone else in the same relative positions to them. Have Hammer monitor the closest mass to the jump point, and at the first sign the mass is going to be bigger, move the fleet further out. Jane will warn us in plenty of time to fire before it jumps, but we need to be well clear of the mass, or we'll lose any ship it comes into hard contact with."
"Aye sir."
Her hollo popped off, as she started giving orders. Jedburgh was talking to people out of my sightline.
"Jane, I want our three ships in triangular positions at Battleship gun range, with clear lines of fire. We'll need to fire sooner than everyone else, but I want us so we don’t have to move if everyone else does. Adjust the escape vector of anyone around our line of fire so no-one comes anywhere near us as they break."
"Confirmed."
"Tell Lacey to bring all his pilots to readiness status, and have them in their ships at least five minutes before a mass jumps which is bigger than the Sphere."
"Confirmed."
Jedburgh was waiting for me now, and I could see he had a whole mass of hollo's showing in his CCC on Hammer.
"Jane, singular mode to Admiral Jedburgh please."
"Done."
"Darius, how much do you want to keep that Sphere?"
"I'd prefer to if we can. Can we?"
"Only by letting them in."
"You mean by moving it away from the jump point?"
"Yes. The problem is, they'll see it immediately and know exactly how big it is for next time."
"That we can change," he laughed. He went serious again quickly. "But only if we can save it. I'm not sure how we can though."
"Not difficult," said Jane. "Just bloody dangerous."
Twenty Seven
I went myself. Who else was I going to risk? I swore George to silence, left him the CCC, and walked straight through the CCC airlock into Gunbus.
Jane's avatar was on the Bridge, and I buckled myself into my chair without a word. We launched as soon as I was in. Once clear of Sceptre, we cloaked.
"First mass is about to jump," said Jane. "It's smaller, but still large enough to test the shields. You want us in a push position?"
"Yes. As close to the center of mass as you can get, without hanging in the doorway."
Which would be fatal. As it was, we'd be in spitting distance of the ships jumping in.
Half way there, I watched the mass jump. It vanished on the other side, the same as all the other ships, but the shields went down by just over fifty percent. It effectively meant that even if they didn’t send a bigger one, the shields would fail after three or four of them, maybe a couple more if they could be swapped out with the spares. Jane disillusioned me about that immediately.
"The next one is fifteen minutes out, and is almost a tight fit now. By the time it jumps, I think it's going to be too big."
"Get us in position as fast as you can."
I thought for a moment.
"Can you extend the cloak around the Sphere?"
"Sure. You want shields too?"
She was being sarcastic. I gave her the look.
"You're serious?"
"Yes. Shields and cloak. Can you?"
She was silent for minute, and only partly because she was thinking. We were coming in on the back side of the Sphere now, and she was slowing us so the grav's on the front would just kiss it when she peeled our cloak back.
There was a slight clunk as ship met station hull.
"Yes, I can do it. It’s a standard shape, and all I need is to cut out the door area."
"How long?"
"Five?"
"Be quicker. We need to be moving well before that mass jumps."
She went still, and silent.
I opened a channel to all ships.
"Hunter to all ships. In a few minutes time, the jump point Sphere is going to be
cloaked, and shortly after, moved. Immediately it does, alien ships will start to jump in intact. Hold your fire until Admiral Jane gives you the order to fire, which will be the correct time before the next big mass jumps in, in order our pulses arrive the moment it does. Just because someone else is firing DOES NOT mean you do. Wait to be told, or let Jane do the firing for you. Those on the first line, adjust your targeting now, to fire on the jump point itself. All other defense lines will wait until I give you the all clear to fire. Titans, go to full Battle mode now."
I had pop ups all over the place now. Some showed parts of the fleet. Three showed the Titans changing shape. Some showed people on ships gasping, swearing, or being otherwise surprised by what the Titans were doing, or by the image of the mass approaching the jump point. Orion swung around to bring her fighters to bear.
The navmap was showing me the position of the next mass.
"Jane?"
Nothing. I waited.
"Okay, got it now."
On the HUD, the Sphere winked out, replaced by a mass shadow.
"Door is opening."
"Get us moving the moment it is."
"Jon, where the hell are you?" asked Amanda.
"Where the fuck do you think he is," screeched Aline, in a voice I’d never heard her use before.
"Where's Gunbus?" asked Aleesha.
"Not here," said George.
"Is he fucking crazy?" asked Dick.
I tuned them out.
"Jane, better tell Alison to calm Aline down before she loses it."
She just looked at me. I knew it was not the right thing to say. Aline was level headed all the time. There was obviously something I was missing.
"Moving," she said.
Gunbus was straining to move a station sized object, with station mass, even if it was hollow, from a standing start, while expending a great deal of energy both cloaking and shielding it. Movement was entirely too slow for my taste. I removed all the vids, and left up only the one pointing down across the doorway area. Our acceleration started to pick up.
Debris shot out the doorway, becoming visible immediately.
"Give her everything you've got!"
"Duh!"
Popups. Sceptre and Hammer fired Titan guns. They were the furthest away. I hoped to Gaia no-one fired early.
Ships began to shoot out behind us, most of them damaged. We continued to gain momentum.
The cylinder appeared behind us. More popups, showing Battleship guns firing.
"Clear," said Jane.
It seemed like the entire fleet was firing on us now.
Our shields began to go down slowly.
"Are we being fired on?"
"Yes. No. We're taking fire from the aliens, who are firing in all directions at once. They just happen to be hitting us without knowing we're here."
"You hope."
"Yes."
We were making a half decent speed now, but we were still way to close when the alien mass jumped in.
It was there for barely a second, beginning to move away, when almost every gun and missile the fleet could fire, hit it at the same time.
It was like a nuke going off right next to you.
Everything went black.
Twenty Eight
"How long was I out?"
"Five minutes."
"Sitrep?"
"Buggered if I know."
I gaped at her.
"Sorry Jon, I screwed up."
"What happened?"
"Apart from me taking too long to get us moving?"
"Don’t wallow."
"I don’t wallow."
"Good, don’t start. What happened?"
"We were too close to the fleet's fire. We may as well have set off a dozen nukes on the hull. No, that wouldn’t have been as bad."
"You're wallowing again."
"No, I'm not! We took all the debris from the exploding mass on our shields all at once, at least two misaligned Titan pulses, a half dozen Battleship pulses, and I lost count of the rest which hit us."
"Damage?"
"Of course we're damaged. We lost shields for a moment, and although we didn’t lose the cloak, there was no cloak around the engines. We took a significant hit there. Ship systems are out. We have life-support and gravity only. The Crystal is still working fine, so we're still cloaked, now fully, since we don’t have active engines. The repair bots are working on everything."
"So we don’t know what happened after?"
"No."
I sat there feeling lost and empty. Mind racing.
"Did you ever get a Lightning cloaked?"
"Yes. It's on Redoubt. It halves its speed though when cloaked, so I never told you about it. It's still a work in progress."
"Can you cloak it and bring it here?"
"I would if we had any coms."
"Combat suit on board?"
She looked at me strangely.
"Jon, have you ever considered a job as an AI?"
I laughed.
"Combat suit is active. Coms is active. Contact made with the nearest comnavsat. Lightning cloaked, and on the way."
"Can you get a status update?"
"Not really. The fleet is still there, still fighting. More will have to wait until the Lightning arrives."
"How long?"
"You may as well head down to the airlock. As soon as it's out of danger, I'll uncloak it so it can go faster."
"Are you going to get control back in time?"
"In time for what?"
"In time to not crash into the sun?"
"Oh." She thought about it. "Probably."
"Don’t dock the Lightning them. Use it to alter our trajectory, so you're heading towards the LA jump point."
"I need to do a self-diagnostic."
She wasn’t joking, and she should have thought of both things before I did. On the other hand, not being human, didn’t make her infallible. And she did have a lot going on. I sat there, until I felt a thunk on the hull, where presumably, she had peeled back the cloak on both ships.
"It's working," she said a minute later. "By pushing on Gunbus in the right place, I've rotated us enough so we point towards the jump point now. Hang on while I move the Lightning again."
She went still and silent.
"Damn, it isn’t working. The Lightning doesn’t have the power to change our course."
"Can you route the Crystal through the Lightning?"
"Sure. But you might end up walking home if I blow it up."
"Try anyway."
"You may as well find something to eat then. This will take a while."
I did as she said. It was eerily quiet on board, sitting in the barracks mess by myself, with only memories for company. I thought back to when this ship was home, and huge. I missed Angel. I missed Aline. I missed everyone.
"I'm too old for this shit!" I said to myself out loud.
I felt forty. As if I was aging in cat years, instead of human ones.
"Alrighty!" said Jane. "We have some decent thrust now. Slowly ramping it up."
I finished my food, racked the dish and utensils in the cleaner, and took the water bottle with me back to the Bridge.
"I've given it as much as I dare, and our heading is slowly changing to match out line of thrust."
I sat there slurping slowly, waiting for her to speak again.
"Okay. Alignment complete. I'm unhooking the Lightning and will have it at the left airlock by the time you get down there."
"So I could have stayed there, and saved myself a trek up."
"Sure. But where's the fun in that?"
I looked at her, while she grinned at me.
"I'll send some help as soon as I can."
"She needs a shipyard Jon. Going to have to replace the whole rear end."
"I'll send that huge tug to you, as soon as it's safe to."
"Better bolt it to three Lightnings, so it'll have enough speed to catch me."
"Will do."
I hesitated.
"Jane?"
"Jon?"
"Wasn’t your fault. It had to be done, and we did it. Truth to tell, it went better than I expected."
"Don’t tell anyone else that."
"I won't."
Twenty Nine
"What the fuck is going on?"
"Is that a rhetorical question? Or do you really want an answer?"
The avatar was still on Gunbus, so this was the Lightning version of Jane, using cockpit coms. The Lightning had barely begun the trip back to the fleet, when I’d seen something happening which shouldn’t have been.
"Sitrep."
"The jump point is still being held, although there are a few aliens loose in the system now. Another much larger mass of ships is approaching the jump point. Looks to be close to twice the size of the one which nearly hit us. So I think we can assume they've been ramping them up each time. Bentley is giving the orders, and seems to be doing a fine job of it."
"And that lot?"
I waved at a set of dots which were not at the jump point anymore.
"Fourth Reich fleet has bugged out. From the distance travelled, I’d say they left immediately after we did the big firework, which probably means everyone thinks you're dead. The German fleet is in pursuit, and the two fleets are taking pot shots at each other. A half dozen Pocket Battleships are following the Germans. Oh, the lead is John Wayne, so they must be official. Both German fleets have casualties by the look of it, but the damaged hulls are back near the jump point, so they must have exchanged fire before breaking away."
"Put me on the Fourth Reich flagship."
"Confirmed. Remain cloaked?"
"Damned right."
"Take longer."
"Can't be helped. Do you have any droids on board?"
"Only the cleaner-bots."
"Can you use one of them to open the airlock for me?"
"That would be interesting. But there's no need. I'm on those ships already. I took the precaution of uploading myself into protected storage a few days after they joined the fleet."
"Scorpion protocol?"
"Based on it, yes. Seemed logical they might be a loose cannon."
"Are we close enough for you to let me hear their Bridge chatter?"
"I'll need to activate to do that. They may or may not detect me. There are no traps in place I can find at the moment, not like the Earth fleet, but they are a paranoid lot at the best of times."
Hero to the End (The Hunter Legacy Book 13) Page 14
