Legend of Dreamwalker (The Hunter Imperium Book 5)

by Timothy Ellis

  The salute she threw me would have made a drill sergeant apoplectic.

  “Actually,” I started to say.

  “No,” said Jane.

  “You don’t know what I was going to say.”

  “Of course I do. I know you better than you do. You were going to point out I have the star and thus I should be in command here. Yes?”

  I frowned. That was exactly what I’d been about to say.

  “Jon put you in command,” she went on. “Not me. I can command. I have commanded. But he made a point of giving command to you.”

  “I've been a Commander for only a few hours. I don’t even have the training to be a senior officer, let alone in command of a small fleet. Talk about the blind leading.”

  No-one chuckled.

  “You've done more than fine so far Commander.”

  I shot a glance at Vulture, and he appeared to be serious. The others nodded. I sighed, thinking about relative experience. Popups showed me a comparison. All three squadron CO's had the longest service records. Neilson went back the furthest, but his was mostly civilian flying. Ball had the shortest record. And while Eric currently flew a battlecruiser length carrier, and should have been senior, no-one really was. Least of all me. Eric looked troubled, but I guessed wrong.

  “You should take Claymore,” he said, surprising the hell out of me. “I've seen what you did with Orion's Belt, and I can't do that at all. With Claymore being our biggest ship, she should have the best pilot as well, and that's you Commander.”

  “I agree,” said Jane, and everyone else nodded.

  “A soon as Blossom has life support again,” continued Eric, “I should move over there until Slice is back on his feet. From what he said last time we talked, none of his crew have any command experience at all, so I appear to be it. And if need be while Blossom can't fight, I can fly Nascaspider.”

  He looked at Ball, who was nodding, so I assumed he was the senior pilot of the two of them. Or she didn’t want to leave her corvette.

  “If I do take command of Claymore, that leaves us with a destroyer, frigate, and corvette without pilots.”

  I looked at Vulture, Falcon, and Hawk. They looked uncomfortable, looked at each other, and nodded. The up side of this ship shuffle was Rockmonster would get one of their Excalibur IV's if hers wasn’t repaired when they needed to launch next. It did leave a few things to work out, like how to dock all three ships.

  But the fatigue was catching up with me. It'd been a super long day, and I could see exhaustion on everyone's face, except the two AI's.

  “Who designed the accommodation on this shit heap?”

  Seven

  Rockmonster wasn’t the only one not appreciating the pilot accommodations.

  While the older pilots were used to bunking in racks three high, from their time flying on BigMother or one of the other Scimitars, quite a few had never been in what I called marine team barracks before. As I found out when I went to look, each bunk had a very comfy bed, and closed up for privacy and sound proofing. But it wasn’t the bunks being objected to, but the shower facilities. There was a very large spa bath in one corner, several non-water freshers, and a row of toilet stalls. But the main water shower was communal.

  Not wanting to deal with the situation, I told her if any of the women wanted their own digs, they could use the marine barracks up on deck zero, which were either side of the docked frigate. If anything they were likely to be even more spartan, but for now, we had the space. Those who still had a conventional Excalibur still had a proper bedroom, and quite a few of them went back to their ships to sleep, even with the spacewalk.

  Eric didn’t have any crew, and was probably the only ship in the fleet not to, and he showed me to the empty XO's suite, which was larger than the suite I’d had on Orion. Shenaid and the three CO's were shown to officers' suites by a butler droid I belatedly realized was Kat, who I hadn't realized had followed me to Crusader.

  Before collapsing on the bed, I did a summary vid for the Imperator, asked him to please put Jane in command of the fleet, sent it off, and after shifting to a belt and glasses, I had a long hot shower in the black, and passed out on the bed as soon as I hit it.

  Kat woke me in the morning, well after training time, which I'd obviously missed, and after shifting into uniform and super mask, and finding my ship image and name on the belt buckle updated, I headed for the pilot's mess for breakfast. Two steps out the door, Eric waylaid me, and the two of us headed for his ready room instead. Jane was already there, and the Imperator was frozen on a vid, seemingly looking right at us. It started playing as we sat.

  “Commander. I put you in command of the fleet for a reason, and your request is rejected.” Jane was grinning. “The ship assignments are confirmed. You are to hold your position as long as you can until repairs are completed. If no enemy action has occurred by then, you're to continue Slice's scouting mission for as far as practical. If nothing else, we need to know where those trees came from. Jane will keep me up to date with where you are. Carry on. Hunter out.”

  The vid closed. I sat there wondering what to do next. Breakfast. Eric followed me down to the pilot’s mess, making the access shaft look easy. I wasn’t sure I’d get used to it at all.

  It turned out I was ravenous, eating a second serve of the full porky. Just about everyone was just as hungry. With no actual reason for getting up, since it appeared no-one, meaning me or the CO's, had organized any kind of training, pilots came staggering in the whole time I was eating.

  I figured Eric on his own was getting away with no training, hence nothing organized. I also wondered how one person could possibly live on a ship this size all on his own. I sure couldn’t. The solitude would drive me nuts. But then, he’d been a long range explorer pilot for many years. I guess they preferred solitude. I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask though.

  Eric had eaten a fast breakfast and left, and I found him in his ready room when I made it back up there. I was slowly getting the hang of the access shafts, but I did prefer going down, to the gut wrenching gravity change at the top after going up.

  A quick look at the HUD and navmap on the way through the bridge had shown me we'd moved in-system. Both AI's were sitting in their normal seats, and neither looked around.

  “Morning sir,” said Eric, as I entered.

  “Belay that,” I told him, continuing on to one of the lounge chairs. “Call me Chris. I haven’t taken command of this ship yet, and in spite of the insignia, I was a flight lieutenant yesterday. You have the experience, I don't. So when the troops aren't around, let's forget the ranks.”

  “You sound like Jon. Sir.”

  He grinned, and I couldn't help joining him. Jane joined us before I'd made myself comfortable.

  “Status?” I asked her.

  “We're currently holding position near the orbit five asteroid ring. The salvage droids are retrieving small ones with the right ores and minerals in them, for the use of the fabricators. Blossom has life support back, and her crew without their captain are already back on board. Slice is still in a care unit here, and likely to be in there for quite some time yet. The CCC will be operational in a few hours, and while the ship can move, it won't be fighting for a day or two more.”

  “I'll be out of your hair as soon as we're finished here,” said Eric. “I packed my trunks last night, so you can move into the captain's suite as soon as I'm gone. My butler was changing linen and stuff while we had breakfast. I'll take Nascaspider over there, which will free up the second corvette dock on the flight deck wings.”

  I nodded. That solved the corvette docking issues.

  “Once you get a chance to assess the damage over there, let me know. I'd like to keep Blossom with us when we continue the mission she was on, but not if she's a liability.”

  “My first priority.”

  I looked again at Jane.

  “Apricot One is docked on the flight deck. I took the liberty of undocking Monty when we arrived here, a
nd Claymore rigged up docking for Crusader. It's nasty, for now, but she's sitting where Monty was, albeit sticking out a lot more in various directions. Monty is now docked on the end of deck zero, where there was a droid airlock. And for now, Tag'Em is docked to the one on the other side of the ship. Jessie can decide if she wants to use that dock, or the flight deck.”

  “Talking of the flight deck, can we do anything to increase the size of the elevators?”

  “Way ahead of you. Claymore and I've been doing designs to both increase the size of the elevators, and the launch tubes.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Bob Derr already did.” The popup told me he was the Imperium shipyard manager. “All we're doing is converting the specs for the modified Arthurian version, to something we can do without a shipyard. I assume you want it functional rather than pretty?”

  “Whatever works.”

  “It'll work, but Bob will have a fit when he sees the result.”

  “Have a care unit handy then,” said Eric, grinning. “Just in case.”

  “How long?” I asked, not wanting to find out if Eric was serious or not.

  “Elevators done by dinner time, and tubes by morning.”

  “Do it.”

  “Confirmed.”

  “There are only eight tubes on each side,” said Eric, now serious again. “So launching is going to take two cycles. And there isn’t going to be a lot of space on the maintenance deck when the bigger birds are down there.”

  “The squadron CO's will manage. Jane, can you get them up here when they're free?”

  “Earliest convenience?”

  Earliest convenience was ancient military speak for get your arse somewhere now, usually where a flag officer wanted you.

  “Hell no. If they're in the middle of something, it can wait until they're through down there. But you can whisper in their ears for the Excaliburs on the flight deck to launch if able, and do CAP duties until further notice. Move the rest away from where the work needs doing.”

  “Confirmed.”

  “Unassailable?”

  “Plugging holes and repairing damage. She's able to fight now, but will be better by the end of the day.”

  “Drones?”

  “Not yet. The priority was parts for the Excaliburs. Give me a couple of days and I can probably replace all the mark threes with fours. The threes can then be stored in Unassailable.”

  “So you're saying tubes which can take both in one day, or replacement fours in two days?”

  “Yes. Either or both.”

  I debated it for a few moments.

  “How did the fours perform yesterday? I haven't checked.”

  “Really well for the experienced pilots. It was the inexperienced ones in 266 which got clobbered, and the mark threes, which have less shielding. But put it this way, we didn’t lose any ships, and we would have if Rockmonster and co had been flying threes.”

  “So for pilot safety, we really need the fours?”

  “Sounds like it to me,” said Eric.

  “Okay, do both then. Replace the badly damaged threes as soon as you can. Phase in the rest as they get built.”

  “What about recon drones?” asked Eric.

  “Were the AMS ones special?”

  “Yes, but they were also older tech. I’d be tempted to say let's put the scan tech in mark four Excaliburs, use them AI controlled to scan for jump points and do system mapping, and they can be backup ships for the pilots if needed. Alternately, we could use the mark threes as AI controlled recon for the time being, as they get replaced.”

  “We could do that, yes.”

  “Decision on the ship mods?” asked Jane.

  I sighed, and thought about it again.

  “We need bigger elevators, so do them. But leave the tubes alone. Priority to being able to get a squadron down as fast as possible, and replacing the threes with fours. You can modify the threes for recon as they get replaced.”

  “Confirmed.”

  Eight

  The three CO's entered together.

  “Do you still need me?” asked Eric.

  “Need? Not as such. But you know this ship better than anyone else.”

  “Except Claymore. If you need to know something, ask her. I'll get out of your hair, and see how the repairs are going to Blossom.”

  He rose.

  “Commander, Claymore is yours. I stand relieved.”

  I rose as well.

  “I relieve you.”

  He threw me a rough salute, and left. I sat again.

  “CAP will be out there in ten, skipper,” said Vulture.

  “Skipper?”

  “Captain.”

  “Captain?”

  “You just accepted command of the ship. You're the captain now.”

  My sigh was more like blowing out all available air at once. The three of them grinned.

  “How the hell did this happen?”

  It was a rhetorical question, or so I thought.

  “You did the worst possible thing, and were punished for it.”

  I looked at Falcon in surprise, but the others were laughing. Even Jane.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “You did the impossible where the Imperator could see it,” said Jane. “Sure fire way of being promoted.”

  “And why we stayed flight lieutenants for so long,” added Hawk. “We let Eagle and Buzzard get all the credit.”

  “Don’t worry sir,” said Vulture. “We all managed to fail upwards yesterday.”

  Since none of us were going to be flying conventional fighters again anytime soon, he was probably right.

  There was silence for a full minute after that thought.

  “What do we do about the squadrons?” I asked.

  “You mean with us flying bigger ships?”

  I nodded to Falcon.

  “Yeah. We've taken the squadron CO's out of each squadron, and put them in a largely incompatible ship.”

  “Not really,” responded Hawk. “We just use the same formation we did with you. Big ship in the middle. A flight flies top cover. B flight goes low cover, and C flight, reduced to a three ship arrow, with say the most inexperienced pilot in the lead, and two very experienced pilots as wingmen, does rear cover.”

  “And we fly the squadrons as a triangle formation as we have been doing,” added Vulture. “The main question is how you want us in relation to Claymore?”

  “Play it by ear I guess. Wait and see what we face.”

  “How soon do you think?” asked Hawk.

  I popped up the navmap. There were two Lightnings in the next system, with about half of it now covered by scanners. It was clear of other ships.

  “Looks like late afternoon at the earliest, assuming something shows up on the navmap in the next couple of hours.”

  “So we have most of the day free?” asked Vulture.

  “Assume so. What do you have in mind?”

  “What are your orders?”

  “Let's not play that game, please. The three of you know more about running squadrons than I know about being a senior officer. I'm going to do the 'sergeant put up that flagpole' routine, and leave it to you to run your squadrons. As I see it, we need a combat launch protocol, a retrieval protocol, and practice at both until this ship changes from an oversized fighter into a combat ready carrier. That includes launching and docking your own ships, and integrating Ms. Ball and LC Neilson into the fighting force with their corvettes. Jane?”

  “Yes boss?”

  “What simulators do we have on board?”

  “Enough, in two rooms, but not programmed for Excaliburs, only Brawlers.”

  “Can they be updated?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do so. Let Vulture know when they're ready. As senior squadron CO, I guess that makes him CAG.”

  There was a loud groan from his direction. No-one laughed though, even if it was funny.

  “CAG?”

  “Sir?”

  “Put up
that flagpole.”

  “Aye sir.”

  “Oh. And someone had better explain to Rockmonster and the others the facts of life on a combat ship.”

  “Do you want them all in the same mess?” asked Falcon.

  “Up to you. Until the ship gets marines as well as pilots, we have the space. The Imperator could send us marines tomorrow, or never. We won't get any advanced warning. And since I am supposed to be team one's preference for their dropship pilot, it's very likely we'll get them at some point for some sort of ground mission.”

  “Is that really likely,” asked Hawk, “now you command a carrier?”

  “Yes,” said Jane and Vulture together.

  I looked at Jane.

  “Horses for courses.”

  “Run that past me again at a slow walk?”

  The three pilots were chuckling.

  “Jon will use you any way he thinks is best. If that means you drop with a team, you drop with a team.”

  “So we really need to make sure the marine barracks are ready for marines then?”

  “Big ten-four rubber ducky.”

  I closed my eyes, and shook my head a couple of times, not having the faintest idea what that meant. When I opened my eyes again, Jane was grinning at me.

  “Yes. Sorry. I forget people are not up on old pop culture as Jon is.”

  “That’s not old,” said Vulture. “That's antique.”

  But he knew it was?

  “Regardless,” I interrupted. “Those recruits who missed basic training like Rockmonster, really need to be given a reality check about ship board life. Orion spoiled them, but this is a combat ship for combat pilots, and the reality of modesty is there is none.”

  “Until you get to our rank,” added Falcon.

  “Maybe you can educate them as part of training schedules?”

  “Might be possible,” said Vulture.

  “Flagpoles,” I muttered, and the three of them rose, and hustled out.

  “Jessie is here to see you,” said Jane.

  “Send her in.”

  I remained where I was, and waved her to an easy chair. She sat.

  “I need an admiral moment,” Jane said to me.

  “Take two.”