Send in the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 3) Read online

  Send in the Hero

  By Timothy Ellis

  The Hunter Legacy, Book Three

  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

  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

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  Sector Maps

  One

  The station groaned audibly as it started to move. A vibration could be felt through my feet, which hadn't been there a moment ago. Slowly, we picked up speed, heading for the jump point.

  "Talk to me Janet," I said to the station's AI.

  "The stress of moving from a stable orbit into a trajectory away from the planet, didn’t do the station any good. But there is no major damage."

  "Tell me why we're doing this again?"

  "The new Pompeii government awarded the station to you as payment for ending their civil war, provided you removed it from the system. I guess they don’t want anything in orbit that can possibly bomb them again."

  "And it's safe, you said?"

  "I didn’t say that. I said all the original stations were made on old Earth, and towed to their new planets."

  "We're not towing though, we have tugs on the hull acting like engines."

  "Same difference."

  "And you're sure the station will jump safely?"

  "Of course. You worry too much."

  I probably did. But then, I’d gone to a lot of trouble to save some friends of mine from slavery or death, and I didn’t particularly want it to be short lived.

  The station settled on course. The vibration slowly faded.

  I was in the Administrator's office, sitting comfortably. All was going well. Why then was I so jittery?

  Several hours passed in a blur, watching our progress. The station was much slower than a normal ship, let alone mine.

  At last we approached the jump point.

  "Slow us right down, Janet. I want the station going through as slowly as possible."

  "Yes, my Lord."

  I opened station coms.

  "Stand by for jump."

  I closed the coms.

  Our progress slowed, and almost stopped.

  The station jumped.

  There was a loud explosion somewhere in the distance. The lights went out. I plucked my pad out of the holster on my hip, and thumbed it into life, giving me a small amount of light. Having a pad at all, branded me as some sort of throwback. Most people used hollo screens which only they could see. For the first time I was glad I had something that generated its own light.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. Stations had redundancy factors way beyond the worst projection of any systems failure. The backups for the backups, had backups.

  "Janet?"

  There was no answer.

  I tried to open station coms, but there was no power to the console.

  I looked around for the door, realizing as I did, the station was on an angle. The floor was tilted slightly. This was not a good sign. Wherever that explosion had been, it had effected the gravity system. There is no up or down in space. The gravity system ensured no matter how the station was oriented, that up was up and down was down, as far as people were concerned.

  I felt the gravity field shift, and the room tilted further.

  I headed for the door. The safest place to be was going to be on my ship.

  The sound of stressed metal assaulted my ears.

  The corridor tilted further, as I raced along it.

  Cries of panic came from somewhere, although I could see no one ahead. I had enough light to see where I was going. But around me was dark gloom.

  I kept going for the Docking Deck.

  Gravity failed completely, and I found myself ballistic. I was moving forward precisely in the direction my last foot push off sent me. The ceiling approached, and I raised my left arm to fend it off. Even so, I hit the ceiling hard enough to expel my breath. I sucked in a new one as I bounced downwards. I landed in a potted plant. Fortunately, the pot was stuck down and I was able to grab hold.

  I crawled around the pot, grasped the carpet in my fingers, and started to pull myself along, floating a few inches above the sloping floor.

  Metal screeched again, and a long crack opened in the wall next to me.

  My suit changed into space suit mode, which told me there was now a hull breach somewhere. I had to find some air in a hurry. Suit air wasn’t supposed to last you long, just enough to get you to an air supply. In a ship, these were everywhere. I was on a station. This wasn’t supposed to be happening.

  I figured out how to move in zero gravity, pulling my way around using whatever was to hand. I bumped into things all the time, but managed to keep moving in the right direction.

  The station staggered, with the sound of another explosion.

  I floated out into an open area, which I recognized as the main public walkway around the Docking Deck. There were people floating nearby. I pushed off gently and floated up to one of them. One look told me she was dead. I used her to sling me around the direction I needed to go to find Gunbus.

  The ceiling behind me disintegrated. A beam crashed through and impaled one of the bodies, both bouncing away chaotically.

  I used a large chunk of debri
s to change direction again, and headed out over the cargo area.

  Gunbus was still docked, her airlocks open. Another bad sign.

  The floor beneath me was suddenly gone, leaving me floating over a giant hole.

  Another loud screech sounded, which I could hear through my suit without needing my PC to augment the sound.

  Gunbus suddenly wasn’t there. The whole wall moved away from the station, ship still attached to the airlock.

  I had no way of stopping my momentum now, and I sailed out through the hole. I used my PC to show me an image behind me. The station was breaking up. As I watched, large chunks went out in all directions. I panned around looking for Gunbus. She was tumbling away, not under any form of control, still attached to the airlock.

  I wondered where everyone was. If they were on Gunbus, she would be moving to collect me. She wasn’t.

  I sailed out into space. The view was breathtaking. The view was lethal.

  A pop up warning announced I needed to be on an alternate air supply within two minutes.

  Two minutes. What a waste. Come all this way, only to die in space, a minor meteor, orbiting a star called Miami. I should have let the first pirate kill me, and saved myself a lot of pain.

  One minute warning.

  I said my last goodbyes to my family and new friends.

  Gunbus came into sight again, now moving toward me. They weren't going to make it.

  I began to find it harder to breathe. I coughed several times, my heart started beating faster, and my breathing became rapid and shallow.

  I was sitting in my command chair, in space.

  Oh great, I thought. I'm about to die, and the last thing I see is my recurring nightmare. That’s just brilliant.

  No ship, no life support, no nothing.

  Just me, in my chair, in space.

  Two identical women stood behind me.

  Eight other women stood behind them.

  Two men stood with them.

  Space around me was not familiar.

  As I looked around I saw no planets.

  There were many asteroid fields.

  In the distance, two gas giants.

  A movement in front of me caught my eye.

  A black dot had appeared at long range.

  As I watched, another dot appeared.

  Then another.

  Then ten, a hundred, a thousand.

  Space in front of me turned black.

  I woke abruptly.

  I was in my bed. Angel, my nine week old kitten, was curled by my neck.

  I eased myself up so as not to disturb her. I called for lights, and reassured myself this was indeed my bedroom, on Gunbus.

  As a first, it topped my list. I’d never had my recurring nightmare prefaced by another such vivid dream before. I'd had nights where I would have different dreams, eventually ending the night with the nightmare, but never this intense.

  I arose, and walked into the bathroom. I splashed water on my face and looked at myself in the mirror. My beard was filling out. The dark around my eyes was finally vanishing. I padded into the kitchen, pulled out a bottle of water, slurping a long drink. It was still early, so I went back to bed.

  Oddly, the recurring nightmare hadn't bothered me this time. In fact, it had been a relief to wake up from the one preceding it. Normally I woke in terror. I should have. If suffocating in space wasn’t enough to illicit terror, then what was?

  I lay there pondering the new change to the recurrent dream.

  Beside myself, twelve people now slept on Gunbus, my Corvette class ship. All of them were now in my dream. It had begun when I was a young child, terrifying me up until recently, when I finally understood the scary part. As long as I had people with me, the darkness wouldn’t get me.

  The darkness was something from Prophesy, which only the Keepers of Gaia knew about. Gaia was my home, currently locked behind the isolation policy of the planet Outback, in the Australian sector of space. For only five days a year can people come and go. Outside of what was a narrow window of time, those on the planet had to stay there, and those off planet could not return. It was enforced by a small but very effective Military.

  I pondered the events of the last month or so.

  Forty three days ago I'd been an apprentice, on my first trip into space.

  At home, because my planet had a longer rotation period around its sun than Earth did, I was counted as sixteen years old, barely an adult, not yet old enough to own property. In Earth standard terms, used by all space stations, I was eighteen, and considered a full adult. In the time since I'd left Outback Orbital, I felt like I'd aged several years, instead of the weeks it had been.

  On down jump into the Sydney system, my ship was attacked by a pirate, and as the only survivor, I'd had to fight back to stay alive.

  Rookie one, pirate zero.

  But that brought the wrath of a pirate group down on me. When I left hospital five days later, I was in the curious position of being both a hero to some, and an enemy to others. The next month had seen me attacked by Pirates, Assassins, Bounty Hunters and Mercenaries.

  Against all expectations, since no-one knew I'd lived on space combat games and simulators since an early age, I'd not only survived, but thrived. It was a Galaxy where most law enforcement in space was done through the issuing of bounties, for those with the ships and skills to collect on them, rather than by civilian authorities enforcing space law. The sectors of man, spread along the spine of the Orion arm of the galaxy, along with the three Guilds - Traders, Mercenary and Bounty Hunters; posted the rewards for destroying or capturing wrong doers.

  Within my first week after leaving hospital, survival had earned me enough credits to custom make my own fighter, which I called Excalibur. Within the month, I'd also custom designed and built Gunbus. Both were significantly more powerful than anything else in the same classes. Something I kept quiet, as appearing to be weaker than I was, lulled the arrogant into mistakes. Arrogance seemed to be a trait of a lot of combat ship pilots and captains.

  One of the oddities of surviving so many people trying to kill me, was that I was also able to claim their ships as a prize of combat. I'd used many of these to pay for Excalibur and Gunbus, but I was also starting to accumulate ships I could use.

  I'd been lucky to have help for my early days, and the last few weeks.

  Amanda and Aleesha Peck, identical twin sisters, were part of a Mercenary group called Smith's Alpha Team, I'd saved the day I'd saved myself. As thanks, their leader, Colonel Annabelle Smith, had assigned the twins to act as bodyguards for me, while I learned how things worked, and how to defend myself.

  Alison, team medic and administrator, had helped as well. The four of us had become more than friends.

  Alison had a knack for massage, and I'd taught her what I knew of Reiki.

  The twins had been an ongoing tease. I frequently woke up to find them beside me in bed. We showered and enjoyed spa baths together. This seemed to have changed lately. I'd started waking up alone again.

  Once I'd learned the basics of protecting myself, mainly from Amanda, who as sexy as she looked, was downright scary when in professional Mercenary mode, I'd fought with the team, generating a feeling of family with them.

  Colonel Smith was the grey haired older officer you could look up to, a quietly decisive and effective leader.

  George Murdock was the sole man on the team, a general pilot without combat skills, something of a do-a-bit-of-everything warrior, who I was encouraging to step up to be a full combat pilot. He enjoyed suit programming, and I frequently came across him wearing some bizarre outfit that had me laughing.

  Anne (BA) Baracas was the combat leader, tough as nails, but surprisingly, loving little kittens as much as I did. Abigail was the tech, computers and coms being her stated specialty, but I'd always had the notion she was a hacker of exceptional ability. Aline and Agatha were dropship gunners. Alas, we didn’t have a dropship at the moment, so they had been practicing on th
e gunnery positions in Gunbus' Bridge. Alana was the demolitions expert. I hadn't seen her practice her trade as yet.

  Between them, they had kept me alive, and taught me what I needed to survive, in what for me, had turned out to be a hostile galaxy.

  They kept trying to recruit me to the team. Their combat pilot had died on that fateful day when our paths had first come together. I'd not been game to ask about whoever he or she was, and no-one had volunteered any information. They seemed to think I was the best they'd come across for the open position.

  On my first flight in Excalibur, I'd flown into a trap. I'd prevailed, but been towed home. The damage had meant the team had flown off on a job without me.

  Having been drafted into the Australian sector Militia, once Excalibur was repaired, with some much needed upgrades, I'd flown recon missions for General Harriman, looking for a pirate base. It still remains hidden. Events interrupted the search.

  I’d had numerous scrapes with people wanting to collect on the now huge bounty on my head, both on stations and in space.

  Then the worst thing possible happened. I'd been forced to watch Moose, my Mercenary friend's ship, explode, and not been close enough to do anything about it. Lost in grief and anger, I'd survived another trap and captured the old Midway class Escort Carrier called Junk Heap One, which another pirate group had used as cover. They pretended to be a salvage outfit, but instead used it to plunder the space ways. It wasn’t going to be plundering anymore. I had plans to upgrade it to use as a command ship and mobile base.

  I'd kept trying to find the pirate base, and people had kept trying to kill me. Another pirate died in his Corvette, which I salvaged. It's currently being refitted.

  The one bright light in this dark period of time, was when I picked up Angel. I'd also saved a family on that fateful day which changed my life, and in thanks, they had offered me a kitten. She was a Lilac point Siamese, all white with a touch of grey around the head, tips of ears and paws, and a delight to be with.

  No sooner had we started becoming acquainted, than an email from George, who I thought was dead, sent me eight systems away to the edge of the American sector. I went, fully expecting another trap. On the way, I'd been attacked by a retro, end-of-the-world type, death cult, in the Midgard system. I’d left derelict ships strewn from one jump point to the other, not wanting to stop long enough to clean up the mess.