Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates Read online

  Hero at the Gates

  By Timothy Ellis

  The Hunter Legacy, Book Nine

  Copyright © 2016 by Timothy Ellis

  Cover Photo from the Egosoft Game, X3 Albion Prelude.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are fictional and have no relationship to any real person, place or event. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

  The author has taken the liberty of using some recognizable names in a historical context or projected into the future as if such entities survive into the timeframe of this work of fiction. Such references are intended solely as a tribute to the entity so used and all such usage has an intended deep respect. The author has also deliberately chosen names for characters in tribute to the science fiction genre in all forms of media. Some may be obvious, others won't be. There is no implied connection, other than what the reader may make for themselves.

  The author is Australian and the main characters in this book are of Australian origin. In Australia, we colour things slightly differently, so you may notice some of the spelling is different. Please don't be alarmed. If you do suffer any discomfort, please take it out on the nearest pirate.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contents

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  Thirty Five

  Thirty Six

  Thirty Seven

  Thirty Eight

  Thirty Nine

  Forty

  Sector Maps

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  One

  "Definitely pirates," announced Jane. "Melissa just confirmed it. They're heading towards, and the Lightnings blew past them without any reaction."

  "Slow us down Jane, normal cruising speed."

  "Confirmed."

  "Time to intercept?"

  "At this speed, twenty minutes."

  Jane had three ships highlighted on the HUD. They were strung out in a line, about fifteen minutes apart. The first was a very modern Corvette, in the same class as Unthinkable, before I'd had her upgraded.

  Ten minutes later, I gave Jane the nod, and she pulled us back to a much slower speed.

  "Go," I said.

  Camel launched from her side docking bay, with 266's Privateers launching a few seconds later. They formed up ahead of BigMother in an arrowhead formation.

  General Custer also launched, from her dock on top of BigMother, and formed up above us.

  Jane slowed us some more, and the smaller ships pulled ahead of us.

  We'd done this a number of times before, and there appeared to be no complications this time, so I expected this to be a slam dunk. So did everyone else.

  The Corvette seemed to have better shields than the class usually had, no doubt due to my design influence being copied by the pirates. All the same, it had a lot less than Gunbus did.

  Lacey fired Camel's front guns from long range with two torpedoes, looking to knock down shields without doing any damage. Behind him, the 266 pilots fired their front guns. The Corvette changed course quickly, also showing the influence of my design innovations, but more than half the pulses and both torpedoes hit.

  It exploded.

  "What the hell?" I vented.

  "Sorry boss," said Lacey. "I don’t understand what happened. We didn’t hit it hard enough to more than damage it slightly."

  "Something suss with it for sure," said George, in the captain's chair on Custer. "Maybe they were carrying ordinance for a bigger ship, and a torpedo just hit the spot?"

  "It's possible," agreed Lacey.

  "Let's tone it down for the next one," I said. "It's also a modern looking Corvette. If you need to take a few passes, its fine with me."

  Lacey started giving orders to his pilots, and they reformed into an arrow formation, matching my speed.

  Marginally less than fifteen minutes later, the second Corvette came into range of Camel's guns.

  Camel continued straight ahead, firing full front guns, but no torpedoes this time. The Excalibur's went left, and used their Point Defense turrets to flail at the Corvette's shields. The Centurions went right, and did the same, although with less turrets. The Corvettes shields failed, and Lacey gave it a single torpedo aimed half way down its back.

  The Corvette exploded.

  I sighed, and face-palmed.

  Swearing came from some of the Centurions.

  "That made no sense at all boss," said Lacey.

  "I agree," added George. "That torpedo should have opened the ship to space, but no way should it have destroyed the ship completely."

  "Third times the charm then," I said.

  Rinse and repeat, as they say, although for the moment, I couldn’t quite remember who 'they' were.

  The third ship was an old Frigate. While being bigger, it should be less than the modern Corvettes in terms of firepower and shielding. I passed that on to Lacey, and he gave his pilots new orders.

  This time, Camel went high, using only Point Defense turrets. The Excalibur's went left again, and the Centurions right.

  The Frigates shields shredded.

  "Custer go."

  "Going," confirmed George.

  Camel and 266 pulled away, leaving the Frigate with hull damage in several places, but no actual breaches.

  Custer pulled alongside, as the Frigates shields began to regenerate. The nearest Point Defense turrets fired into the Frigate.

  And she exploded.

  Custer's shields had been reduced by half, and a roiling cloud of debris washed across her, until George was able to get her clear.

  "DAMN IT!" I roared.

  There are some days when you just shouldn’t get out of bed. They follow decisions you shouldn’t have made. Well, maybe.

  "Get a grip Jon," said Annabelle quietly.

  I made an effort.

  "We don’t have time for this shit!"

  "There's still time," chimed in Jane.

  I shot her a dirty look. I'd been hearing that same line trotted out over and over for three days now.

  The few others on the Bridge with me remained silent. They were seeing a new side of me, and I guess no-one quite knew what to do with it. I had to admit, I had been a grump. But I had good reason.

  We needed to capture a pirate ship, and we needed it now. So far we'd destroyed every pirate we'd come across, even though we were making every effort not to.

  "Get everyone docked, and let's get moving again."

  "Confirmed."

  Camel and 266 had been supposed to soften up shields so Custer could dock and capture. They'd done it before. But it see
med pirate shields weren’t what they used to be. I had a thought.

  "Can they be self-destructing on us?"

  "Why would they?" asked Dick. "I agree it looks like that's what's happening, but there's no reason for it."

  "They never have before," added Amy.

  Okay, fine. When you want something done right, do it yourself. I sat there fuming.

  "All docked," said Jane. "Resuming course. Lightning's are waiting for us at the next jump."

  "Tell them to get going."

  "Confirmed."

  Melissa and Grace in the Lightening's were doing two jobs. Clear the way in front of BigMother as we headed down the spine close to top speed, and destroy the Comsats on the other side of any pirate force they passed. So far, they were the only part of this hair-brained scheme to be going right.

  We'd come through Wolf 359, Paris, Switzerland, Gibraltar, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Moscow; like a bat out of hell.

  Part of my bad mood was we were going the wrong way. The Door to home was opening soon, and I was getting further away instead of closer.

  In Nippon, the Lightning's had zoomed past the three pirates they'd found there, pretending to have no interest in them, and destroyed the Comsat at the Beijing jump point, so they couldn’t get a message out. That was the only thing which had gone right. The pirates had been using ID overlays, so until the Lightnings came into short range and scanned them, we hadn't known for sure they were pirates. There were a few more suspects ahead of us, but we wouldn’t know until someone came in range. Until then, they could be legitimate sector forces on patrol. It would be nice if sectors let us know, but. The but hung there. There really wasn’t an end to the sentence.

  At the jump point ahead, we would need to tweak the programming of the comnavsat there to do the work of the normal comsat it now had to replace. By default, the comnavsats only allowed Hunter traffic through, unless told otherwise. Jane would do the change on the fly, because we were not stopping for anything short of another pirate.

  "Tell everyone to go to bed," I said to Jane. "That’s where I'll be, and don’t bother me for anything short of another pirate."

  Short another pirate. That we were. It was the lynch pin on this plan. No pirate, no plan.

  "Confirmed."

  I stomped out past Magnus, who wasn’t game to meet my eye, the white streak of Angel passing me before I reached the door.

  Travelling this fast was stressful. We'd already had minor collisions with several ships at jump points, leaving chaos behind us. Fortunately no fatalities, but I wasn’t picking up the pieces of people too stupid to get out of the way of a Carrier going hell for leather. We simply didn’t have the time for normal speed travel, and taking it carefully. Normal for me of course, which was much faster than everyone else's normal.

  'And we will be returning to normality, as soon as we can figure out what is normal anyway.' One of my favourite Hitch Hikers comments. Normal and I had this understanding. It didn't bother me, and I wouldn’t bother it. Occasionally though, we had an altercation.

  In my bedroom, I stripped off, changed into boxers and t-shirt, and threw myself on the bed.

  "What the hell was I thinking of?" I asked myself.

  "Don’t ask me," I replied.

  "What use are you then?" I demanded.

  "More than you at the moment," I responded.

  "Bugger it!"

  I buried my head in my pillow for a while. Sleep didn’t come. My mood didn’t improve. I turned over onto my back.

  "Remind me why we're doing this?" I asked the air above me.

  "Perhaps I better show you," said Jane, and popped up a hollo of my Ready Room.

  The time stamp showed it to be just after breakfast time, three days earlier.

  Two

  I was wading through four months accumulation of emails, still feeling the morning training session. The night before had been a late Valentine's Day for lots of the crew, and had been a somewhat late night for a lot of people. Aline had milked it for all it was worth, in spite of the rest of the team preventing us from having a quiet romantic dinner together, and she didn’t let me get to sleep until well past two in the morning. I suspected some of the crew had been out all night.

  "All back on board," said Jane. "But Carter wants to see you straight away."

  "Get us moving then. We don’t need to speed run, but I want to make good time home."

  "Ah, wait until Carter has spoken to you."

  "Why?"

  "She has someone with her."

  "A Lightning can return her guest after."

  "Maybe."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  She didn’t answer.

  I didn’t have long to wait. Carter poked her nose around the door, and begged my humble indulgence to talk to me. Well, maybe not, but she should have.

  "Can I have a moment of your time?" she asked, not yet fully in the door.

  "Sure. A moment. I want to get us moving as soon as possible."

  "Um, about that."

  "What?"

  She finally entered the room, pulling someone I didn’t know with her. The guest I assumed.

  I stayed seated. Not very gentlemanly, but I was feeling Admiraly instead.

  "Admiral Hunter, this is Dr. Carol Magnus."

  Magnus was a heavy-set woman in her mid-forties. She had the battle-axe look about her which suggested she normally got her way, and one should tell her no at one's peril. She tentatively reached a hand across the desk, and I shook it. I waved them to chairs. And raised an eyebrow.

  Magnus cleared her throat, while Carter tried to avoid my eyes.

  "You wanted something?" I hinted.

  Not very charitable I admit, but I wasn’t in the mood. My mind was fully on going home.

  "Magnus needs your help," spat out Carter in a rush.

  "I'm not for hire right now."

  "I know, but this is important."

  "Not as important as me being at the other end of the spine as soon as possible."

  "Yes it is," said Magnus suddenly.

  I leaned back in my chair. And realized I was being pompous. I let myself deflate.

  "Tell me."

  "Better tell him everything Carol," said Carter.

  "I represent a group of people trying to find a way to survive the great blockage."

  I blinked a few times, not having heard the radiation system at the core end of the spine called that before.

  "We've been trying to find a way of surviving in there for many years now. None of our attempts to enter have been successful so far."

  "I know," I interrupted. "I came across one of the unfortunates from the attempt twenty odd years ago. Child of parents who made the attempt, and born, how shall I put it, abnormal?"

  "We heard, when she went on trial. That mission is still classified, as are all of ours."

  "Nice objective, but what do you need me for?"

  "Two things. First, our explorer ship was taken by pirates two days ago in the Nepal system. The pirates have been in touch demanding we pay ransom for the crew's return."

  "I don’t do rescues!" I broke in.

  They both looked at me as if I was stupid.

  "I especially don’t do rescues DOWN the spine, NOW. I'm heading UP spine as soon as you're off the ship."

  "These pirates you will want to go after. From what I hear, they have a big fleet."

  "Fine. I'm interested. But next month."

  "We don’t have that long."

  I stopped myself from saying anything, and just stared at her.

  "The other thing which might interest you, is our purpose in entering the great blockage. We want to salvage Prometheus."

  My mouth fell open. I'd just been successful in salvaging Enterprise, her sister ship.

  "Got you," said Jane via my PC.

  Got me indeed.

  "Jane, get Jack up here please."

  "Confirmed."

  "So you are interested
?" asked Carter.

  "What do you intend to do with Prometheus?" I asked Magnus.

  "We don’t want the ship, just any remains still recoverable, and the data which it has stored. While we don’t know what data it has, the crew must have been studying the system at the time it killed them, and it’s a reasonable assumption the sensors were never turned off, and hundreds of years of data are now available."

  "Probably not hundreds," I said. "Decades maybe. The ship's power sources would not have lasted for hundreds of years without maintenance. Most likely, the computer failed a few years later, with the rest of her systems. Do you know where she is?"

  "Not exactly. The drone which found her about fifty years after the ship vanished, recorded her slowly ballistic, away from the jump point. She will still be on that line, assuming it didn’t intersect with something solid."

  "Exactly how do you expect me to be able to help salvage her, if all previous missions have failed?"

  Magnus looked at Carter, who blushed.

  "I've been told about your new shields. The media hinted you had them, and when I bumped into Carter, she explained them to me."

  I shot a frown at Carter, who wilted. She was supposed to be a doctor, and doctors were supposed to be good at keeping secrets. Magnus went on.

  "Shields which can protect a ship within the corona of a sun, are just what we need. We've been experimenting with new shields for a long time, and the explorer ship was off to test the latest ones when it was captured. What I’d like to do is merge your new shields with ours, and see if this will protect us in the great blockage."

  At that moment, Jack came in.

  "You wanted me Admiral?"

  I motioned all of them to the conference table, and moved there myself. I looked at Jack.

  "Colonel, you mentioned a Pirate base to me. Can you tell me where it is?"

  "Not precisely. But it's somewhere around the Libya system."

  I pulled up the nav map, and zoomed in on Libya, which was very close to the core end of the spine.

  "How do you know?"

  "I was chasing a pirate Destroyer, until it up and vanished on me."

  "Unknown jump point?" speculated Jane through my PC.

  "Could be," I responded the same way.