Legend of Dreamwalker (The Hunter Imperium Book 5) Read online

  Legend of Dreamwalker

  By Timothy Ellis

  The Hunter Imperium, Book Five

  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

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  Read series in this order

  The Hunter Legacy Timeline

  One

  “Dreamwalker and Chaos to the bridge!”

  Our lips parted, and un-puckered. For a moment we looked surprised at each other, and then as one, we ran out of my, our, suite. We'd been there less than ten minutes.

  Deck two of the command carrier BigMother didn’t have travel cars. We sprinted along the accommodation hallway, until we came to a choice. On the left was a staircase. On the right were two shafts with nothing in them, but the holes went both up and down. I hesitated for a moment, but Grace went straight up the stairs at the run, and I followed.

  At the top, she turned left, and led me onto the bridge. There was a small crowd in there already, including the Alpha team, and General Smith. I also saw four others who made me stop walking suddenly. I'd come across the tiger before, but not actually seen him, since it was before getting my sight back. Next to him was a roo, and I'd met one of those recently. I’d seen the white skinned Mage before, and a popup told me her name was Syrinx.

  But the fourth was the one I hadn't seen before. He was totally void black in the same way Syrinx was ceiling paint white, and the popup told me his name was Tanith, and informed me he was also a magician.

  The two of them were seated, and appeared to be concentrating. I noticed Syrinx was holding a staff, and Tanith was also touching it.

  I forced my feet to move again, and joined Grace standing by the Imperator's chair. His cat was on the main console, sitting there watching me. I found it just a little freaky.

  Jane was over in her normal seat on the left of the main console. She looked up at the main screen, and we all followed her gaze.

  Another bridge appeared, showing two men I’d left only minutes before.

  “Imperator?” asked Admiral Hallington, CO of Orion's Belt.

  “Boss?” asked Space Commodore Lacey, at the same time.

  “We have a change of plans,” said the Imperator. “The Ralnor just appealed for help again. One of those deep incursions I was talking about earlier has threatened another of their worlds. I'm having comnavsats inserted all along that corridor of space, so this time I know what's been prepared for us.”

  The Trixone had set traps for all active Imperium ships early in the day, so his caution was warranted. Now I knew what the magicians were probably doing. I had no idea how though.

  “I'm taking the Wayward fleet, but I want your best fighters as well. Three standard squadrons, all Excaliburs, including all the new prototypes.”

  That meant 266 squadron, which I’d just been detached from, plus another sixteen pilots from the other ten oversized squadrons on Orion.

  “When?” asked Lacey, who was Orion's CAG.

  “Now. They get five to gather belongings, but I want them over here in fifteen minutes. Fearless will be undocking as well. And Crusader. I'm also taking Dreamwalker's Cobra. I'm sending you General Custer, and Jane is currently building new docking facilities to dock Crusader in her place. Please don’t lose Custer, we're all quite attached to that ship. But I can't take a destroyer and keep a frigate docked.”

  “Ah, is that why I have hangar doors opening,” said Hallington.

  “That would be it,” said Jane, grinning.

  Lacey was giving orders, and I could imagine the ants nest response. The crew had stood down after special dinners following medal ceremonies in each mess. Being called to action was not going to be expected. Still, it was only thirty six out of several hundred. I wondered why for a moment, but the inevitable popup told me BigMother was only rated for three squadrons of twelve, of the largest of the fighters. She could pack in more, but the accommodation wasn’t up to Orion's standards for all but the senior officers.

  I threw a glance at Amanda, Colonel Peck, and joint CO of the marine teams.

  “All five teams are aboard,” she said, “and BigMother carries six dropships all the time.”

  I nodded, and looked back at the HUD. White dots were appearing. Three of them left Orion. Two were heading for us, and the third, Fearless, was heading for Undaunted, which appeared to be a missile dreadnaught. I assumed the assault cruiser was going to be docked alongside the dreadnaught, as nothing in this fleet was big enough to take it internally. One was heading from us to Orion, and it must be the frigate, which apparently docked on top of the back of this ship. Very odd.

  Three squadrons of Brawler heavy fighters launched progressively from BigMother, and headed for Orion. When I pulled up the hangar listing, I found there was another thirty six still on board. I had no idea why. But it was obvious the Imperator was moving enough to make way for the Excaliburs. All the same, the maintenance deck was going to be more than a little squeezy. Six squadrons was the limit for the standard heavy fighters, and the Excaliburs were way bigger.

  Something made me glance at Jane, and she met it and grinned, giving me the double raised eyebrow routine. Which made sense, if she was using them as drone fighters herself. I already knew she was running a dozen AI combat suits with team one, so there was no reason she couldn’t operate dozens of fighters on her own as well.

  The minutes ticked by, and finally the twenty brand new Excalibur IV FB's of 266 squadron launched, followed by another sixteen standard ones.

  Landing took a little longer. BigMother only had a dozen elevators on her flight deck, and they each only took one fighter at a time. We were used to Orion, which had hundreds, and they all took five ships easily.

  At the same time, my Cobra was disappearing
in a side flight deck entrance, and Crusader was hovering over a docking position designed for something about half the size. When I checked specs, I found there was room for two corvettes off the main flight deck, and the Imperator's standard Gunbus was in the first position for them. They were too big to go anywhere else. But the ship seemed designed around the need for them.

  “Anything else we can do for you sir?” asked Hallington.

  “I'd like to be taking all of your pilots,” said the Imperator, “but until we get them Excaliburs, and they're all capable of flying them, there's no point. We'll make do with what we have. In the meantime, until the Ralnor relieve you, keep training your pilots. Once we prove the new prototypes, I'll see you get plenty of them. You can expect another lot of rookies in a few days as well. Mostly from Naranja, and the rest from the Democratic Union. Hold the line there, and keep training them hard.”

  I'd not heard the names before, so there was another popup. Two of the allies who'd joined the Imperium hadn't had formal names, the same as we still didn’t, but apparently they'd decided on them. The DU people were indistinguishable from us, but Naranja was where the orange skins of some of our existing pilots came from. Orion had already had every colour from black, through all the browns, to pinky-white, and through to orange, and finally pure white. Humans were nothing if not diverse.

  “Will do, sir.”

  Lacey beside him nodded, but I could see on his face he wished he was coming with us.

  “Carry on,” said the Imperator, and the channel closed.

  He turned to Jane. She nodded.

  “Follow me,” he said to Grace and I.

  He rose, walked to his ready room door, and went in.

  Two

  He waved us to the conference table, and we sat, Jane joining us.

  But he sat at his desk instead, and started pulling up screens around him. My own sight rearranged the screens for me, and I could see he was looking at real time images from across a number of systems. Each had a Trixone fleet of varying sizes. He sighed, and let them drop.

  He took the chair at the head of the table, and we waited, silently.

  Three men entered, pausing inside the door, and taking the remaining places at the table. The first was Vulture, Squadron Leader Tom Jones, of 266 squadron. The second was Falcon, Flight Lieutenant Warren Taylor, who was A flight commander, and my wingman until this morning. The third was Hawk, Flight Lieutenant Gavin Williams, who was B flight commander.

  Jon Hunter, who I still thought of as the Imperator, greeted each of them like old friends.

  “Gentlemen,” he said looking at all three. “Welcome to BigMother. Sorry about the short notice.”

  They murmured variations of forget it.

  “No time for ceremony, so let's get down to it. I'm forming two new squadrons. 266 will remain active, and the new ones will be 267, and 268.”

  He looked at Falcon and Hawk.

  “You gentlemen are promoted to squadron leader, effective right now. Falcon, you get 267, and Hawk, you take 268. The three of you can argue about who gets which pilots, and I know you still have some rookies, so keep them under the wing of a more experienced pilot still. I want flights of the same birds. With twenty prototypes, you can't make two complete squadrons, yet, but I'll leave it up to you how you mix them. Maybe 266 keeps the IV's, and A flight of 267 and 268 also have them. But you work it out.”

  Falcon and Hawk look stunned, while Vulture was grinning.

  “The three squadrons will form a wing, with Dreamwalker as the temporary CAG.”

  Now it was my turn to look stunned.

  What the hell did I know about being a CAG? I wasn’t even trained to be a senior officer yet. I'd had almost no time as a lieutenant before jumping major, and making Commander, which was the navy version of Lieutenant Colonel. The last promotion was only hours ago, and I had no idea how to be a squadron leader, let alone a navy version of a wing commander.

  “Chris will fly Crusader as wing leader. You'll fly as a unit as much as you can. Just make damn sure your pilots keep your distance from the rest of us, or you'll be bugs on the windshield.”

  He was grinning, but I knew he was dead serious. The fleet was mainly all dreadnaught sized, and they all flew and fought like a fighter did.

  The three of them nodded, obviously not game to say anything. But my eyes were on the Imperator. I had the feeling he hadn't finished dropping bombshells. I was right.

  “You've got a half hour to form squadrons, and be ready to launch. The three of you will have accommodation on deck two, but the rest of the pilots will have to use the pilot's mess. After Orion, the accommodations will be a huge letdown, but they'll need to get used to them for the smaller carriers anyway.”

  They nodded, and I guessed they'd been here before, and knew exactly what the pilot accommodations were like. The ship was big, but with a hundred marines on board, as well as the thirty six pilots, I was guessing the accommodations were going to be stretched. When I had a moment, I'd need to look at the specs for this ship. I wasn’t sure I’d be getting a moment.

  The uniform insignia of Falcon and Hawk changed, and the three of them stood, saluted the Imperator, and left in a hurry.

  “You enjoyed that,” said Grace.

  “I always do,” he said. “One of life's few pleasures is promoting people who deserve it, especially when they've been resisting it for so long. I prefer to make promotions a reason to party, but sometimes battlefield promotion is all you can do in the situation you get dealt. Like now, and I'm afraid we've got work to do. The timing sux, but that’s why they call it the shit end.”

  Grace and Jane laughed. It was late evening, and we'd all had too much to drink. The last thing we needed was to fly combat any time soon. But it looked like we were going to. Fortunately, I didn’t drink much, but I knew some of the others had.

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Grace.

  “You stand by for now. I brought Fearless for all those combat droids you packed on, in case we need to help down on the Ralnor planet. If needed, Syrinx will put you back on her bridge. Alternately, you might need to fly the Cobra if Chris can't get off Crusader in time.” She opened her mouth. “No, you can't fly Fearless into battle. She doesn’t have the shields. Her upgrade is on my list of things to do. And I'd prefer we didn’t launch the Cobra as a fighter, since we only have one.” She pouted. “Let's see how things go.”

  She didn’t look convinced, or happy. He looked at me, and then back to her.

  “What's the story with you two?”

  “Story?” she parroted.

  “I've got eyes Grace.”

  “We don’t know yet. But we agreed to find out if it went anywhere.”

  “Fine. I'm happy for you, but it means you stay in different chains of command.”

  Which effectively stopped her launching as a fighter pilot, since that would put her under my command. But as an assault ship captain, we were safe as a couple. Couple? Did I really want to go there? Oddly, yes, I think I did.

  “Wipe that smirk off your face commander. You launch with your fighters. You better have BA show you decks zero, and how to get onto Crusader.”

  “Aye sir.”

  I left in a hurry as well.

  Three

  Hollos started popping up the moment I dropped into my chair.

  Jane and Shenaid were already there, and buckled up.

  Before I’d even finished buckling myself in, it seemed as if every ship captain was staring at me. Which was very disconcerting, since two of them had four stars, my Aunt Susan had three, and most of the rest had eagles. I’d met some of them, but not all.

  I knew nothing about Imperium coms tech, something I needed to update myself about, but since all of these people were scattered around Ralnor space, it was impressive they were all in real time with me. And not a little scary.

  As the one I knew the best, I looked at my Aunt Susan. With the mask I was wearing over half my face, raising an ey
ebrow wasn’t possible, but she knew me.

  “Chris, relax.” She was grinning at me. “We only want a rundown on how we can improve our combat skills, based on what you did this morning.”

  I'd taken out a major Trixone fleet this morning without taking any damage, where I knew Hammer, my aunt's ship, needed a shipyard taking on much less, even though she'd had more firepower than I did.

  I was aware of not having much time, but fortunately, I’d already had this conversation in parts, and knew what they needed to hear.

  “Okay, this is the speeded up version.”

  I saw George give me a thumbs up.

  “First off,” I said, hyper aware of talking to high brass, “you need to consider your AI as a second pilot, or if you like, your weapons officer. The better the two of you work together, the better the ship fights. So talk to them.”

  I saw some nods.

  “Assuming you're facing both a fleet and fighters, you need to delegate to your AI before you start. What I did was give capital ship missile control to my AI, concentrating on the Trixone fleet ships. Those flying titans can spread the love,” there were a few chuckles, “but otherwise decide on priorities for targets, and let the AI get on with it. Likewise, let the AI worry about firing anti-fighter missiles. I used all of my FF's first, mainly for their random targeting and general chaos creation, and then IR's when we ran out. But by then, targeting was easier because the number of fighters left was small. Relatively speaking.”

  More nods.

  “If your first encounter is with massed fighters, set all your turrets to point defense mode, even the big ones. And redefine tree fighters as missiles. Every turret you have will then fire on them, and you can more or less forget about them for this phase. After you whittle the fighters down to a manageable level, you can reset your big turrets to fire at capital ships, but this will be after you stop flinging the ship all over space.”

  Some laughs this time.

  “I set the front guns to single fire, at a tenth of a second intervals, going for a gatling gun effect. I held the trigger down from the moment I went head to head, until there was nothing left to shoot at. What the titans have on the front acts like a shredder this way, and you just fly the ship to hose the shredder across the formations or groups. Those with smaller ships will need to figure out what gives the best hosing effect, and maybe you can have some front firing turrets synced with the front fixed guns. Your AI should be able to enable it for you.”