Hail the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 5)

  Hail the Hero,

  By Timothy Ellis

  The Hunter Legacy, Book Five

  Copyright © 2015 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 do not 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

  Sector Maps

  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

  Forty One

  Forty Two

  Forty Three

  Forty Four

  Forty Five

  Forty Six

  Forty Seven

  Forty Eight

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  Sector Maps

  One

  "Oh hell no!" I exclaimed.

  I felt disjointed for a brief moment, as if time had just jumped back a few seconds, and I’d heard myself exclaim the same thing twice. Or maybe it was just a mental echo brought about by a shock discovery.

  "Get Yorktown moving NOW!" I yelled. People around me winced, as team coms amplified my voice in their heads. "They're about to jump on top of you. Cruisers, Corvettes, and Excalibur pilots, stand your ships on their nose and push Yorktown down! For divine's sake, do it NOW."

  "Jon, what's going on?" asked Vonda.

  "The Midgard fleet is about to jump into Miami, right on top of the American ships. And what's worse, they have two giant battering rams going first, presumably to make a path through the debris field that isn’t there anymore."

  I could hear Yorktown's Captain bellowing orders in the background, overlaid by those of Greer and Miriam, as they exhorted their pilots to do as I'd told them.

  Lined up behind the two strange looking ships, were four walls of six Missile Cruisers, with Talon Squadrons in between. Between us and them, was another twenty four Cruisers, deployed in a defensive wall.

  "Four walls of six Missile Cruisers about to jump," I said for the American's benefit, who couldn’t see what I saw. "American defensive ships, get an immediate target lock on the jump point."

  Barely ten seconds later, the first two dull red dots jumped. On the scanner screen, the dull red dots merged with the green dots.

  Two yellow dots appeared for just a second. The scanner feed from the other side vanished.

  "What just happened?" I demanded.

  "Feed lost at the source," said Jane. "Coms lost as well."

  I sat there, stunned, for several seconds.

  "Perhaps today is a good day to die," I sub-vocalized to myself.

  "Shut up Jon!" said Amanda, sub-vocalizing as well.

  "Sorry," I whispered.

  "Ka-Plaa," sub-vocalized Eric.

  "Success," I translated, still sub-vocalizing. "Indeed."

  His pronunciation needed work, but it had been a great response to my all too public musing. Only those on team coms would have heard what we said.

  "All ships," I said normally, "advance. Prepare to fire. Jane, mark out positions to stop, for all ships, in range of all guns. Allow the Battleships room to turn enough to bring all guns to bear. Launch the Hives."

  "Confirmed."

  Time stopped for me. What was it with me and time?

  There is no time. Focus.

  The battlefield was laid out to my sight below me.

  My fleet was arrayed in a wall formation. BigMother was in the middle. Warspite was on my left, Repulse on my right. John Wayne was above, with the Guardians on both sides. A line of Corvettes was above them. A line of Cruisers and Destroyers was below BigMother.

  The enemy fleet was divided into two halves.

  The closest half was a defensive formation between us and the jump point. A wall of Missile Cruisers was six wide and four high, sideways on to us. Seven hundred and twenty Talon medium fighters were behind them, positioned to fire through the gaps, and around the sides of the wall.

  The other half of the enemy fleet was lined up in four rows of six, behind each other, so six Missile Cruisers could jump into the Miami system together. Between each group of Cruisers, were fifteen squadrons of twelve Talon fighters, with the last group of Talons in the tail position.

  I looked down on the battlefield, and a fierce cold touched my heart.

  Time sped back to normal, as did my vision.

  My fleet shot forward, obeying my order to advance, raggedly at first, but coming back into formation quickly.

  The first rank of six enemy Missile Cruisers jumped out.

  "Fire missiles as soon as they come in range. Fire Hive torpedoes as soon as you can get a target for them."

  "Confirmed."

  Midgard fired first, as if they'd been waiting for us to arrive. Four thousand, eight hundred capital ship missiles headed towards us. Talons streamed through the jump point, going the other way, to attack the American fleet on the other side.

  Fifty Mosquito launchers belched in response.

  Our missile launchers fired a second later.

  The second rank of Missile Cruisers jumped.

  A wall of Talon missiles headed towards us.

  The Hives fired off salvos of torpedoes. It looked like they would arrive at much the same time as our missiles.

  I sat there watching. There was nothing else I could do now. The Bridge around me was silent, as everyone's attention was glued to the scanner. I zoomed it in so only the space between us and the jump point was visible.

  "Get the salvage droid out of there Jane."

  "Confirmed."

  It had played its part, sneak
ing us a look at the enemy position without revealing our presence. There was no point in it, or the comnavsat it carried, being destroyed in the fighting.

  Any sort of plan was out the window. Midgard had surprised me this time, and given us no time to adapt. All we could do was slug it out.

  Missiles met Mosquitos, and space in front of us lit up.

  The third rank of Missile Cruisers jumped.

  Our missile launchers fired a second time, this time aimed at the remaining wall of Missile Cruisers, still waiting to jump. A cloud of Talons were in front of them.

  Twenty four Missile Cruisers exploded in the space of three seconds.

  Point Defenses opened up at the approaching anti-fighter missiles.

  Several missiles impacted on BigMother's shields, and I checked to see what was happening, fleet wide. The Corvettes were having the hardest time, but most other ships were holding their own.

  "Corvettes, duck behind a bigger ship, before you lose too much shielding."

  I watched them all fall out of position, and move into protected spaces. Their shields began to improve.

  The last six Missile Cruisers jumped out.

  "Shit!" I said, as I realized what was about to happen next.

  "What?" asked Alison.

  "Our last salvos of missiles are going to jump through into Miami."

  "Oh."

  "No-one ask how bad that is please. I don’t know."

  "Duh!" said Amanda and Aleesha together.

  The last salvos of missiles vanished into the jump point as expected.

  The next wall of incoming Talon missiles launched at us. The Mosquito launchers belched again.

  "All ships, launch FF's."

  The Talon cloud surged towards us, now they weren't trying to protect their capital ships. Seven hundred and twenty fighters. They started winking out almost immediately.

  The fleet kept up the missile launches.

  The cloud surrounded us. Point Defense turrets sought out missiles, Corvette and Destroyer guns sought out Talons, and they continued to wink out.

  "BigMother pilots, launch. Corvettes and fighters, break and attack."

  "About bloody time," said a British voice.

  Gunbus', Camels, Excalibur's, and a Centurion launched, and joined with the other Corvettes in dogfighting Talons.

  "Sir?" asked Lacey, who was in the Assault Frigate General Custer.

  "Go."

  Custer dropped from underneath BigMother, and dived into the middle of the cloud. Normally suicidal for a Frigate, this one could dogfight with the best of them. It was designed for me, and whatever I flew, handled like a fighter. Even BigMother.

  Every fiber of my being wanted to dive BigMother in after Custer. I resisted. I found myself checking what guns I could link to my joystick, and discovered BigMother had the same gun and front launcher setup as Gunbus did, so technically I could dogfight her the same way. The mind boggled though, and I resisted even more strongly. BigMother was longer than a Cruiser, but shorter than a Battleship. Dogfighting in the middle of a fleet was out of the question. All the same, my fingers itched.

  The number of Talons dropped to below one hundred, and they peeled away from the fleet, trying to escape back towards Midgard.

  "Pursue."

  Our smaller ships went after them, while the larger ones continued launching missiles.

  Fifty Talons. Twenty nine. Thirteen. None.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, and drained the remaining water in my bottle. I couldn’t recall actually drinking from it, but obviously I had. Jeeves replaced it with another one.

  "All ships. Crews can refresh themselves, but remain on high alert. We may have to do this again in Miami as soon as we can jump in. BigMother team, RTB. Fleet coms are now ended for now."

  Jane caught my eye, and I nodded to her. Fleet and Team coms shut off.

  The whole battle had lasted just under fifteen minutes. The debris field was huge. Talon wrecks were all around us.

  "Jane, send out the salvage droids. Haul the salvageable Talons into the Guardian's cargo holds. If they fill, create a parking area. Clear the debris from around us into a mountain well away from us, and then I want the jump corridor cleared as rapidly as possible."

  "Confirmed."

  "Is it over?" asked Amy.

  "Yes, at least until we can jump a comnavsat into Miami, and find out what happened there."

  "Admiral," said Vonda. "Can you explain what happened here?"

  I sighed.

  "We arrived just as Midgard were jumping into Miami. My guess is, they planned to attack from both jump points at the same time, using what they thought were overwhelming numbers, and are probably unaware we took the other jump point. The first ships to jump out looked like huge walls attached to the front of two Cruisers. They had obviously guessed a few days ago their fleets were not getting through the debris field on the other side, or maybe a Talon survived the jump to jump back and tell them. They devised a way of pushing through it, to clear the down jump lane, for their fleet to follow. The problem was, Yorktown, whatever Pocket Battleships they had, the Gunbus squadron, and the Excalibur wing, were all waiting to jump through to here."

  "So what happened?" asked Amanda.

  "I don’t know. They had maybe thirty seconds warning to move Yorktown out of the way. Immediately after the two battering ram ships jumped, two missiles were fired, and we lost all contact. I don’t know why."

  "Could have been nukes," said Alana. Everyone looked at her. She was the demolition specialist. "The EMP from an explosion that close would have fried the comnavsat and its salvage droid. Might even have taken out ship ID's. Ships not caught in the initial blast should have been okay otherwise."

  Good explanation for the troops, but it didn’t explain the loss of coms, which had been going AI to AI, through Jane, not the comnavsat. And I wasn’t about to tell them.

  "We can only hope," said Annabelle.

  "Everyone take some downtime while you can," I said. "I'm going to email Miami, and hope we get a response. It's going to be at least an hour, likely more, before we can safely approach the jump point. I'll be in my Ready Room if anyone needs me."

  I jumped up, groaned, stretched, and limped in, sinking into a lounge chair. Angel followed me, and sat on my lap purring. Vonda followed as well. Jane closed the door behind me. I started a vid.

  "Marshall, Admirals, Generals. The Midgard side of the Miami jump point is ours. We arrived almost to the moment when Midgard started to jump a forty eight Missile Cruiser force through the jump point. The first two ships through were like battering rams, as if they expected to have to hammer their way through a debris field to make a passage for their Cruisers and fighters. Seconds after the jump, there were two missiles fired, and we immediately lost both nav data and coms with Miami. The first is explainable if the missiles were nukes, but the coms loss is a mystery, since they were going AI to AI. I'm trying not to think the worst."

  "We know Yorktown was right at the jump point, and only had less than thirty seconds to move clear. For now, I'm hoping they did, and their offensive force remained intact to deal with the twenty four Missile Cruisers, and sixty squadrons of Talons that followed. The other half of the force engaged us, and was handled without any major issues, and no casualties. Once again, the Mosquito missile system proved to be the decisive factor in handling the barrages."

  "Marshall, I don’t know how the American fleet faired. If you receive no contact from Admiral's Jedburgh or Hallington in Miami, please send this vid on to whoever is the appropriate authority for urgent action. I would assume there's at least one Rear Admiral still left there on the other Carrier, but I don't have contact details for that person. Have someone contact me with a sitrep. I sincerely hope this won't be necessary."

  "In any case, as soon as we can clear a passage to the jump point, I'll send in another comnavsat. The state of the other side of the jump point and who controls it, will determine my subsequent actions. In the m
eantime, all we can do here is wait and hope. Hunter out."

  I sighed, assembled the email, and sent it off.

  "Well put," said Vonda.

  "Did I miss anything important?"

  "No. I'll leave you to planning our next step."

  She stood, and left.

  I sent a quick text email to Miriam, asking her to confirm she was alright, hoping it would be answered quickly.

  It wasn’t.

  Two

  I sat there wondering if I’d killed Miriam.

  It had been my idea to mount their new Pocket Battleships, Gunbus squadron, and Excalibur wing, on top of Yorktown, and have her pushed into the jump sideways by a Cruiser.

  It was my fault their Fleet Carrier was sitting there sideways on, totally vulnerable to anything jumping in at them. It had never occurred to me that Midgard might attack there again.

  True, I couldn’t have foreseen what had happened, but the blame was still mine.

  I started down the emotional spiral. My Fault. I'm to blame. Guilty of arrogance and stupidity. Risen to the level of incompetence.

  Was this my karma coming back at me? I'd killed those two assassins without even thinking about it. And before that, I'd flushed the mercenary team out an airlock. I'd killed when I hadn't needed to. Was this my punishment? And what about sleeping with Alison while I had something going with Miriam? Was this punishment for that too?

  In a dream, I’d seen Miriam vanish in purple smoke. Was it trying to tell me she was soon to die?

  I looked upwards, seeking guidance.

  Tell me you haven’t taken my lover's life to pay me back for those I killed.

  Tell me I'm not damned to remember her the rest of my life as a curse for losing my spiritual way.

  Tell me she hasn’t paid my debts.

  Silence.

  Tears came to my eyes.

  A noise caught my attention. BA had her head poked around a barely open door.

  "No you don’t," she said. "You're not doing this!"

  "Which this is that?"

  The flippant answer rolled off my tongue without requiring thought.

  She came in fully.

  "You're beating yourself up about what might have happened over there, because you suggested it. You're rapidly convincing yourself you killed Miriam. Am I right?"