The Hero's Companion (The Hunter Legacy) Read online

  The Hero's Companion

  By Timothy Ellis

  Copyright © 2015, 2016 by Timothy Ellis

  Cover by Kalen O'Donnell.

  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 will not 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

  Introduction

  A few Definitions

  Square screen

  Flat screen

  Words with different meanings

  Hero at Large

  Left side

  PC

  Medical monitor

  Privateer

  Missiles

  Holographic systems

  Prophesy and the Keepers

  Amanda, Jane, and Sarah

  Walter Harriman

  Breakfast

  Suzy Hurndall

  Express Elevator to Hell, Going DOWN!

  Centurion

  Gunbus, Camel

  Talon

  Excalibur

  By your command

  Confirmed

  Mutant Ninja Turtle at the pizza counter

  Jake the Peg

  Smith, Peck, BA, Murdock

  Avatar

  Hunted Hero Hunting

  Sergeant Allen

  One hand, Other hand, Gripping hand…

  Who

  Centaur

  266 Squadron

  Algernon Lacey

  Melissa Gordon

  Exterminate

  What is thy bidding my master?

  Yes, my master

  I'm sorry master,

  Stopping it

  Firefly

  Privateer Laws

  Trading Guild profit sharing

  Amy Allen

  Sar

  Roger Wilco

  tall metal robot

  'old British' Butler

  Norman Bates

  I love it when a plan comes together!

  Cat Ball

  Bad Wolf

  Orion Heavy Bounty Hunter

  I'll be back

  Retro

  Mustang

  Daniel O'Neil

  Send in the Hero

  Ship sizes

  Cave Troll

  Not even home and vigorously toweling off

  Horse racing

  Ten decimal places

  Darius Jedburgh

  Stiletto

  Maniac

  Cluster

  Computer networking

  What this is that?

  Doh!

  Oh my giddy aunt

  James McLauchlan

  Bigglesworth

  Exactamundo

  Dead people and cleavage

  Meat grinder

  No goodbyes, just good memories

  Make or Break the Hero

  In space, no-one can hear you scream

  Fog of war

  I feel the need. The need, for speed.

  The victorious dead

  Immelmann turn

  Game saves

  BigMother of Borg

  Cake run

  Hail the Hero

  Today is a good day to die

  Ka-Plaa

  Now you're getting it

  Small steps

  I have given a name to my pain, and it is

  What's up Doc?

  Oh dear, dear, dear,

  raw prawn

  Burnside's Killer

  Dick Burnside

  James Patterson

  Hire a Hero

  To the nearest phone booth

  Backed her cart up

  Your will, Great One

  Margaret Boothby

  fatigue pants, a white singlet, and a lot of muscles

  Remember Me

  Wesley Crusher

  617

  666 squadron

  287 squadron

  Do, or don’t. There's no try.

  The One

  Convert the door mechanism into an intercom

  M-Kew, Old horse face

  Grasshopper

  Young padawan

  Mary Celeste

  The Flying Dutchman

  So say we all

  Goring, Donitz

  Hitler

  Knights Cross

  Johann Schmidt

  The most gratuitous use of the word fuck

  Flash Gordon

  Ugly

  Grace Tapping

  Jane's Christmas

  Boomers

  X3 trilogy

  Wing Commander

  Moi

  Staff weapon

  A miniature sun exploded

  bright yellow rubber duck

  The Rings

  Dralthi - Kilrathi Light Fighter

  Warcraft

  Hero to the Rescue

  plugging yourself into the power grid

  The magic machine

  Wolf 359

  THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

  Palffy

  Transformers

  Imperious leader

  Skye Walker

  Ken Obi

  Elisabeth Carter

  Gestalt

  Formal black suit

  Homer

  Hogan's Heroes

  Ten four, rubber duck

  Jack O'Neill

  Samantha Jackman

  Mole

  ripping the whole area out

  You will be assimilated

  Middle Earth

  The Man who did maintenance to the engines

  Triffid

  Put you're analyst on danger money.

  Spiritual healer

  android, who wanted to be human

  USS Arizona Memorial

  Mount Rushmore

  Yellowstone caldera

  One hundred days

  I'm going to knock your block off

  It's Borderline on the simulator

  Just one damned minute Admiral

  Hero at the Gates

  Carol Magnus

  Nose pushed back into the brain?

  I'll die if you don’t stop it.

  I thought you'd be bigger

  rabbiting

  Bwana

  Bones, mmmmm

  face-palm

  Taking a moment

  Moving right along

  survivors off planet at the time it was nuked

  A dark man in fire?

  the whole thing in one sitting

  Guru-G

  scratch and bite marks

  Grumpy Cat

  The Long Road to Gaia

  Max

  Mostly Harmless

&nbs
p; Botany Bay

  Do not pass go

  Relativistic effects

  Foom

  Slugfest

  Thunderbolt

  Broadsword

  Mundanes

  Ninety Nine

  I've never met anyone who didn’t matter

  Alpha Team Descriptions, by Thirteen

  Dreams teach

  Karn

  Who else, numb nuts?

  The Mage-King's books

  Jack Deth

  Miriam description, by Thirteen

  Corridor Dreams

  Observations about the Author

  Sector Maps

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  Introduction

  Greetings. I'm Jane.

  I'm owned by Jonathon Hunter.

  Oh, that’s not what I meant, you're getting the wrong idea.

  I'm not a slave, I'm an AI. Artificial Intelligence. Top of the range, too. I even have my own avatar bodies.

  It's my job to run Jon's ships for him, but I also act as a bodyguard and confidant as well.

  Jon may be my owner, but he is also my friend and companion.

  We are both creations of our author, Timothy Ellis. Well, at least he likes to think so. We let him tell our story for us.

  I've been asked to explain some things for you.

  So far, The Hunter Legacy story has come to the end of its second arc, after nine novels and two novella. Hero at Large, Hunted Hero Hunting, Send in the Hero, Make or Break the Hero, Hail the Hero, Burnside's Killer, Hire a Hero, Jane's Christmas, Hero to the Rescue, Hero at the Gates, and The Long Road to Gaia.

  We thank you for reading all of them.

  But we were discussing things one night in the rec room, and it was felt that some things mentioned in the books, may not have been understood, or their origin may have been missed.

  The author has made no secret that many names and concepts come from science fiction, and other origins, some uniquely Australian. And his using them is considered something of a tribute to what has come before. So it's possible some may have missed the connections of things.

  It's my job to dot the I's and cross the T's, so to speak. I've done so more or less in the order encountered in the books, listed by book.

  So, let's do it.

  A few Definitions

  Square screen

  The original television (tv) was square in viewing area, although the screen itself was curved outwards.

  Square screen indicates an early movie or series, pre-1995 for sure, although some between then and 2000 were also square.

  Flat screen

  In the late 1990's, screens became flat instead of large and bulky, as miniaturization of parts and new tech caught up with designs and science fiction.

  These then changed into wide screen formats after 2000.

  Flat screen will normally indicate something made after 2000, for the wide screen format.

  A few tv series started out square screen and made the jump to flat screen before the end. Likewise movie series, where the early ones are square, but the later ones flat.

  Words with different meanings

  Sux = Sucks = This is very bad (for me).

  Suss = Suspect = Suspicious

  Hero at Large

  Left side

  Marvin (the paranoid android) lived for three times the life of the universe, due to people mucking around with time. In all that time, he complained about the pain in all the diodes down his left side. And in all that time, the only things not replaced, were the diodes down his left side.

  There is only one man who can possibly have created such an android, and he was of course, British. Douglas Adams, in The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, a trilogy in five parts.

  Adams was the typical writer, who struggled financially for most of his life, and died after writing a movie screenplay of his most recognized book, but before the movie began production. When they made the tv series from the first two books, he had to do the nude scene himself. So it goes for the artist. Fame and fortune, after you die.

  THHGttG, was/is Space Opera which proves it doesn’t have to be serious and full of space battles, to be good reading.

  The author considers this series to be among the funniest ever written, and can of course recite key parts of it at inappropriate times.

  PC

  Personal Computer.

  The original computers occupied whole rooms. In the late twentieth century, miniaturization techniques brought them down to the size of a large box, and then down to the size of a large book. Versions were designed for communication devices small enough to fit in the hand.

  The miniaturization process never ended.

  By the 27th century, the PC had been reduced to the size where it can be implanted into a person's head, where it integrates with the brain. The line between thinking and processing is well and truly blurred.

  There were the usual outcries about creating cyborgs and pickled brains, when the first PC was implanted. The first failures were spectacular and the process was almost abandoned. Almost, but not quite. As legislation was being drafted to add implanted computers to the list of banned science, along with cloning and other contentious issues, the breakthrough was made. Key legislators were shown the advantages offered, and the legislation quietly died.

  Nowadays, the procedure is done with children at the age of six, with simple models. One of the attractions of coming of age at eighteen is the removal of your juvenile PC and the implanting of an adult model.

  Medical monitor

  The medical monitor is a program running on your PC, which constantly checks your physical condition. As well as bringing problems to your attention, it has the ability to administer pain relief, and regulate some bodily functions.

  The latter allows such things as the blush override, and sexual arousal override. Every teen goes through the experience of blushing unexpectedly, and being teased about it. Most teen boys experience sexual arousal they cannot control (along with some women), with noticeable side effects, which are always embarrassing at the time.

  For adults, regulation of bodily functions can be an aid for sex, allowing the control of sexual climax. Such things as premature ejaculation became unheard of, once this ability was added to the implanted PC. For women, the ability to control the release of eggs, removed the cycle of release, and the unpleasant side effects associated with it, while allowing full control over when they became pregnant.

  The monitor also checks for the contraction of, or contact with any form of disease. Sexually transmitted diseases vanished not long after the monitor was given the ability to kill cells that might infect the body.

  The monitor also has the ability to create certain effects, such as minor pain reduction.

  Privateer

  In the days of sailing ships on old Earth, the term Privateer came to mean a ship crewed by private individuals, who held a commission from a government, to capture merchant ships during a time of war. Proceeds were usually split with the government. They were one step above being Pirates, who took what they wished for themselves.

  As man moved out into space, and found it too expensive to protect their far flung holdings, the Privateers came back into their own. Private Citizens with the means to build or buy their own ships, became law enforcers, for payments called bounties. Rules of conduct were enforced, at first by governments, and later by the Sectors and the three Guilds. When a Privateer went rogue, they had a bounty placed on their own head, and someone else would collect on them.

  By the 27th century, the Privateer was also a class of ship. Usually a form of heavy fighter, they were designed with living areas, so the pilot could spend long periods in space, without needing to land anywhere.

  Missiles

  We had an argument over including this section. Jon thought everyone had heard it too often already. I thought it needed to be included for reference sake. Annab
elle did a face-palm. The twins laughed at us. BA was too busy in the gun ranges to be bothered commenting. George said 'Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes'. Personally I can't see the point of damning torpedoes. Their job is to go boom, and damning them makes no difference to the outcome.

  Anyway, it's my book, so you get to make sure you understood all this. Or you can skip it and go direct to the next reference.

  Missiles were first properly developed for war in the nineteen forties. Down the centuries, they became more powerful and smaller. Originally needing a 'hard point' to be mounted on the exterior of an aircraft or space craft, eventually they became small enough for launchers to be developed. These come with a magazine of twenty or fifty missiles. The better launchers could use reload magazines. The best allowed selection of the type of missile to fire next, allowing different kinds of missiles in the same magazine. Launchers required more space than hard points, so it is rare for a ship below the size of a Privateer to carry them.

  Dumb fire are a simple, cheap, fire and forget missile. It goes where you point it. If you aim it badly, it won't hit. They are not very powerful, and not widely used anymore.

  Heat seekers are a fire and forget missile, which as the name suggests, seeks a heat source and targets this only. As there is no natural heat in space, the only heat is from space ship engines. While this dissipates quickly, the heat seeker is very sensitive and very accurate. However, it too is not very powerful.

  FF is the Fire and Forget, a missile that only targets an enemy generally. Once you fire it, you have no control over it. It picks its own target. If the target is destroyed or stops being an enemy, it goes after another one.

  IR, or Image Recognition missile, takes the data from your target lock, plus any pre-given instructions, and only goes after that specific target. You fire them at a specific ship, or a specific place on the ship. The main use of these is to kill the pilot without unduly damaging the ship itself. While they can target anywhere on the ship, as long as the pilot is alive, and the power source is active, the ship can still fire guns and missiles, even if it cannot actually move. If the pilot is dead, so effectively is the ship.

  The IR is about a third the destructive power of the FF, but much more accurate. Three IR's can take down the shield of a standard fighter, and do some damage, while a single FF could do the same. But it is extremely unlikely two FF's would ever hit in the same place, where the IR's are programmed to. FF's are useful for distractions, especially at the beginning of a battle, as they are dangerous to those who ignore them. IR's are more of a surgical strike weapon, and more use later in a battle when you have time to think before selecting targets.