Blind into the Breach (The Hunter Imperium Book 4) Read online

  Blind into the Breach

  By Timothy Ellis

  The Hunter Imperium, Book Four

  Copyright © 2019 by Timothy Ellis

  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 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.

  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

  Forty One

  Forty Two

  Forty Three

  Forty Four

  Forty Five

  Forty Six

  Forty Seven

  Forty Eight

  Forty Nine

  Fifty

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  The Hunter Legacy Timeline

  One

  This was for real.

  My first launch as an active pilot.

  A full scramble of all squadrons.

  Being last slot in the last squadron, I had to wait while the other squadrons launched first. The newest rookie got the last bird. I didn’t mind. My whole life was aimed at this moment. All I’d ever wanted to do was fly fighters. I'd put everything I had into getting here.

  Ark Royal was the only carrier the British Sector had left, and the competition to get into her squadrons was intense. She flew Typhoon heavies and Hurricane mediums, but the rookie was always assigned to the Tempest light recon squadron. Time honoured names, and kick arse fighters all of them.

  Waiting was the hard part. The two squadrons of Typhoons launched first, both Hurricane squadrons second, and our one and half squadrons of Tempests were last.

  The Wing Commander had been brief. Our recon flight of Tempests had found the pirates the task force was looking for, and the whole wing was going to slow them down while Repulse caught up with them.

  What was minutes felt like hours, but finally my bird was in the tube, and the Flight Sergeant waved me to the steps.

  "Good luck sir," he yelled at me, as my feet threatened to stumble me as I went up, so much was I concentrating too much on getting my helmet on.

  "Thanks Sarge," I yelled back.

  Get a grip rookie, I thought. My feet went into the cockpit, and sitting happened automatically. Hands went to the restraints, they buckled as they should, and I flipped the row of switches which woke the bird up.

  Strange how in this day and age of computers in your head, we still flipped switches to turn a bird on and off. Military didn’t trust anything. Simple got you there and back. Although it was also odd the HUD was linked to the PC.

  Bird on, I checked my flight suit and helmet was sealed properly. Check. HUD was up. Check. Launch tubes clear in space. Check.

  "All pilots report ready," said my new squadron leader.

  I let the others check in, and last and definitely least, added my name to the list of those ready.

  My head turned to the right. A screen showed me the launch officer, who was looking at the status of all the squadron's birds. He saluted, and the light next to the screen turned green.

  Launching hadn't changed in a century. The bird was attached to a catapult. Engines on, thrust at zero, shields off. When the bird exited the tube, the pilot shifted the slider to full thrust, the shields snapped on, and you were away. Major gees for a few seconds after a punch in the gut, and once in space with the shields up, you forgot all about things like gee forces.

  I’d done this hundreds of times. In a simulator.

  Now I was about to launch. My heart was beating like a drum, my mouth dry, and I was hyped up and ready.

  Gees forced me back into the seat as the catapult released and pulled the bird towards the exit.

  The sides of the tube rushed past.

  Time seemed to slow.

  A horrible noise began, like metal shrieking. The bird started to move upwards, which wasn’t possible. It was also going left.

  What the …

  Black.

  Sensations of weightlessness. Pain. All black.

  "We’ve got you Pilot Officer," said a voice from a long way away.

  More pain. Everywhere. Still black. Gravity shifted. I was on a ship. The crunch of landing on a deck too hard. Down feeling. And then nothing.

  When I came too again, there was still pain, but less of it. My face and head felt numb. Still black. I tried to move and couldn’t.

  "Woah! Back to sleep for you pilot."

  What was going…

  No pain this time. Still black though.

  "Chris?"

  "Yes. What happened?"

  "How do you feel?"

  "Feel? Not much. No pain. What happened?"

  "There was a catastrophic failure of the launch bays."

  He may as well have said there was spaghetti all over the mess table. My brain was feeling woolly. I still couldn't move. And still black.

  "Stay with me Chris."

  Stay what?

  "He's back with us I think."

  "Chris? Can you hear me Chris?"

  "Yes. What's going on?"

  "You've been badly hurt in an accident. You're restrained for now. Try not to move."

  "Who are you?"

  "Doctor Peterson. You've been my guest in surgery for the last ten hours. We'll be putting you into a care unit shortly, so you'll sleep again until it thinks you're ready to come out."

  "What's wrong with me doc?"

  "Your ship was destroyed on launch. All that came out of the tube was scrap. You were cut up fairly badly, but most of it was superficial, and your space suit sealed as it was supposed to. Those we can fix easily in the care unit. But."

  He paused, and I knew it was going to be bad.

  "Something sharp cut your face. You have a really deep laceration, and I'm afraid both your eyes were destroyed. Because your helmet was so badly damaged, it didn't seal properly, and you were out in space for twelve minutes before anyone could get to you. The eyes and everything behind them were frozen. We were able to clean out the sockets, repair the top of your nose, and we have new eyes being prepared for you."

  "You mentioned a but?"

  "I'm worried what connects the eyes to yo
ur brain was frozen too long. We won't know until we get your new eyes in, but there's a high chance they won't work."

  He paused again.

  "You could be blind for the rest of your life."

  Two

  That was seven years ago.

  The nightmare still woke me up feeling like I’d been sentenced to death. Often it went on further, but this time the insistent ring of the door chime was obviously what had woken me. The timing was very disquieting.

  I rolled out of bed, stood, and shifted my belt into my usual pants and shirt. I'd given up clothes the day my Aunt Susan had given me the first of the civilian model belt suits. Saved me a whole lot of trouble in the mornings. And it allowed me to cover my non-functional eyes with dark glasses.

  The door chime kept going until I opened the door. Outside was a person. Obviously, but here's my thing. My sight isn’t good enough to tell who a person is, and I never know for sure until I hear their voice.

  "Christopher Ecclestone."

  It wasn’t a question. And I’d never heard the voice before. It was female, and had a level of command to it which stiffened my spine automatically.

  "Err, yes?"

  "I'm Admiral Jane. If you want to fly again, come with me right now."

  The shape stepped away, allowing me to exit the apartment. I closed the door behind me, and code locked it.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Medical facility in the military tower."

  I'd been there already for a medical exam, so destination routing was already set up in my PC. I didn’t get much of an arrow, but it was enough to get around.

  "I'll meet you there, unless you want to walk really slowly."

  "No need, I brought a trolley."

  I felt a hand grasp me by the arm, and was guided over to what I assumed was a vehicle of some kind. I could vaguely see where a seat might be, so pulled myself into it. Her shape settled into a seat beside me, and I felt her hands securing a belt around me.

  There was a jolt as the trolley started moving, insanely fast for a corridor if you ask me, and a jerk as we shot into a hole I assumed was the travel car station, and came to a stop. The car moved, and a short time later, stopped on the other side of the station. The trolley shot out, and came to another bone jerking stop a minute later.

  The belt was released, and I slid off the seat, gently landing feet on the floor. A hand took hold again, and I was guided rapidly inside the medical facility, bypassing the reception entirely, ending up in a bay somewhere.

  "You remember Doctor Carter?" asked the Admiral.

  "Sure. Hi doc."

  "Nice to see you again Mr. Ecclestone."

  "Is this a follow up test?"

  "No. Jane will explain. You need to make a commitment before we can do anything."

  "Anything? What sort of anything?"

  "There's no point in telling you until Jane is finished with you, but we decided to save time and do it here, assuming you said yes."

  "Yes to what?"

  "Your scores in the recruitment simulator have been acceptable," said this Jane person, "especially given your handicap."

  I flinched. It was a word I passionately hated. I had an ongoing medical condition, not a handicap. But try telling that to anyone, and see how far you got. Especially doctors and the military.

  The simulator had only been going for about a week. A friend had told me about it, and I’d just had to try it out. Some things work, and others don’t. I can't watch any sort of visual media for example. But I’d been delighted to find the simulator was designed like a PC's menu system as an overlaid heads up display, so I could actually 'see' it just fine. The actual ship I was shooting at was a blur, but I didn’t need to see the ship distinctly to be able to hit it. Training took over where anything lacked.

  "The colonels seemed to think so. Not that I knew they were colonels at the time."

  Both Jane and the doc laughed.

  "The less said about your excursion down to the planet the better," said Jane. "But if anyone was going to pull a stunt like that, those two are the ones."

  What I thought was two marines doing an escort for a tiger, and needing a pilot in a hurry, turned out to be a sick joke at the expense of the tiger, and something of an audition for me. The marines turned out to be colonels before the trip back, and were looking for a dropship pilot for their team. Since I almost killed us all, I’d thought I was done.

  "They seemed to enjoy the ride."

  "From what I heard," said the doc, "Hobbes turned green after he found his pilot was officially blind."

  Both of them laughed again.

  "Not my fault," I muttered.

  "No," said Jane, "but it demonstrated you have what it takes to be a dropship pilot."

  Suicidally insane I assumed. She went on.

  "Did you hear the news overnight?"

  "Nope. I was on the simulator until two, and you woke me up."

  "The Trixone attacked in force along their entire line with both the Ralnor and the Keerah. It’s a full scale war now. We need every pilot we can get."

  I'd heard all the descriptions, but never seen any of them. The Trixone were some sort of moving plant, the Ralnor reminded everyone of an Australian kangaroo, and the Keerah were an upright tiger. In the last few weeks we'd gone from not knowing where we were in space, to becoming an official state led by an elected committee, which joined with others to form an Imperium.

  And now we were formally at war.

  "You must be desperate to come to me."

  "On the contrary. I believe you offer us some unique possibilities."

  "How?"

  "We've designed some upgrades for you, which should allow you to fly a ship again. The nature are classified, and you only get to find out if you agree to join the new Imperium Space Force."

  "You said ship, and not desk. I'm not interested in flying a desk."

  "Of course you're not. I know your background. I know all about what happened to the Ark Royal. As I said, we want pilots, not support weenies. If you agree to serve, you'll be re-trained for fighters, and dropships."

  "What rank? I seriously couldn’t handle being a cadet again."

  "Believe me, we don’t need cadets. We have enough of them in the system already, mainly from our new allies, and most of them are still grappling with basic flight. The first set of rookies are on ships now, but even you have more experience than they do, given your training was much more extensive than theirs. You start as a Pilot Officer. The Imperator has a policy of advancing competent people, so as soon as you catch up, you'll make Flight Officer."

  I knew Admiral, now Imperator Hunter, was eccentric, everyone did, but advancement in the British Navy had been determined by time in grade, and meeting specified standards. The minimum time for advancement from Pilot Officer had been a year.

  "Might be difficult given what little sight I have."

  "I'm sure we can do something about that. Are you in?"

  "Yes. I will serve the Imperium as a pilot."

  "All yours doc."

  "Up on the bed please."

  I could make out where the bed was, given I’d been there before and knew what to look for. I made it on without assistance this time.

  "Can I ask what you're doing?"

  "Shift your suit back to a belt please, and remove it."

  "Umm, I'm not wearing anything under it."

  I'd given up on underwear with the rest of the clothes. She threw a blanket over me. I sighed, and shifted. I sent it the code to allow it to be removed, and handed it to her.

  "Make yourself comfortable. I'm going to put you out for a short time."

  "Why?"

  "Jane has made you a custom PC, so we're taking yours out, and putting the new one in. You'll get a replacement belt as well. This will be a full military one, but also customized specifically for you. Anything on your existing PC will be transferred."

  "I thought Jane was an Admiral."

  "She is. But she
's also technically brilliant."

  "What can I expect?"

  "You'll find out soon enough."

  There was a touch on my neck.

  Three

  It was like flipping a switch.

  I'd gone out on one flip, and was back like another.

  "What the fuck?" I yelled, and almost lost it.

  "What can you see?" asked Jane.

  Eyes which couldn’t see anything opened as wide as they could, but I was so shocked I couldn’t answer.

  I could see.

  Well, no, it wasn’t sight. But it also wasn’t the limited cam vision I’d been living with since getting my civilian suit.

  I could see almost as well as I had before the accident. No, better in some ways.

  The two of them were looking at me, and I stared back at them. One was a young woman on the gorgeous end of the scale, wearing one star on the shoulders of her red uniform. The other was more towards middle aged, with a full bird on her white medical scrubs.

  "Oh. My. Giddy. Aunt. What did you do?"

  "I think Admiral Bentley would take exception to being called giddy."

  I really looked at Jane. Couldn’t take my eyes off her in fact.

  "You know my aunt?"

  "Very well. We've done a lot of fighting together."

  "Odd. She hasn’t mentioned you."

  "Good."

  "What can you see?" asked the doc.

  "Everything. More in fact. How? What did you do?"

  Carter nodded to Jane.

  "You were under several disadvantages which had never been addressed before. When we build computers these days, they have a display component, which allows all sorts of holographics in addition to three dee displays and flat displays."

  I nodded. I knew that.

  "But when the PC was designed for implanting in the head, they designed it to use the eyes and the eye brain connections for all displays. All except for the basic menu display and overlays. So the best any PC could do for you, was what you've had for the last two years. It's like they took a six hundred year old model one graphics card from one of the original PC's before even the days of colour monitors, and tacked it onto the in the head PC to allow menus and overlays to be seen even when the eyes were closed. The holographics were then displayed using the eye systems, even when closed."