Hero to the End (The Hunter Legacy Book 13) Read online

  "You need to remember the scale of the ships. Each ship is the full height of Hunter's Haven, and half the width. On the front of each ship, including Orion, are a set of twelve Battleship turrets designed mainly for firing forwards, each turret having three guns. In between them are all the lesser size guns, and five hundred torpedo launchers. Down the sides are more of the same, without the torpedoes, but with more Mosquitos."

  Mouths were hanging open.

  "On the top are six rows of four Titan turrets. Each row can fire over the top of the ones in front of it, so all of them can fire at once if need be, all firing forward. Like Relentless, they can all be changed to fire to the rear, or one side, as necessary, without changing the direction the ship is moving in. Each turret has three Titan guns. Also on the turret mount, are four Battleship turrets, three of which can fire in the same direction as the larger guns at the same time, with the fourth there to provide covering fire above the turret. Each has three guns. Between them are turrets for the smaller gun sizes. Between the mounts, are hundreds of Mosquito launchers, hundreds of capital ship missile launchers, and I'm not even sure how many standard launchers."

  Jane opened her mouth to tell me, but I shook my head, and she closed it. They were already beyond comprehension.

  "That’s how many big guns?" asked BA.

  "Seventy two Titan guns," answered Jane, "and two hundred and eighty eight Battleship guns."

  "Per side," I added.

  There was dead silence. I gave them my maniac grin. They didn’t notice.

  "WHAT?" exclaimed Dick.

  "Do you mean to tell me I have more firepower under my thumb than that entire fleet at the jump point?" asked Bentley.

  "Pretty much," I said.

  "Does anyone know?" whispered Dick.

  "Not many. Jane?"

  "Yes, oh master of destiny?"

  "Cut it out."

  "Not possible with this ship. It will obliterate everything it fires on. Cutting is out of the question."

  "Get a grip Jane."

  Everyone looked at me, even more shocked then they had been. I’d told an AI to get a grip. Maybe I needed to get the grip. Or everyone did.

  "Jane, turn us to empty space away from the jump point, and fire a gun only full broadside. Hammer, you do the same please."

  "Confirmed."

  We rotated, and the guns fired. If we'd been on the hull and seeing the effect with just our eyes, we'd have all gone blind. Hammer fired a few seconds later, with the same effect.

  "Strobe," I ordered.

  Both ships fired again, but this time the rows of turrets fired in sequence, carefully timed so the rows would cycle methodically according to gun size, ensuring the first row were recharged as the last row fired. The effect was like a Gatling gun writ huge. Especially given the smaller guns were firing many times between the firings of the larger ones.

  I let the firing continue for three full Titan cycles, and called a cease fire.

  "Jon," asked Dick quietly. "Why do you insist we're going to lose?"

  Twenty Five

  I ignored the question.

  "Jane, have Admiral Sato and my Dad's fleets come out to join us please. Button us all up. Bland boxes will be all anyone else sees for the time being."

  "Confirmed." She paused a moment. "On way."

  Lacey was looking at the specs of his ship.

  "Yes," I said to him. "You have the forward firepower of a four Battleship squadron. But you can't use it if your fighters are facing the enemy. You shouldn’t have to though. The Privateers all have torpedo launchers." I paused. "Actually you better check the Mercs and Germans. If they don’t have them, get them fitted. Your ship can make anything like that your fighters need. As well as the ordinance for them. All three ships can. As we fall back, we'll be supplied by mining ships, or if they're not available, we'll do our own mining. Back to torpedoes, group up the squadrons which have them, so you can order specific strikes of specific numbers, just by calling out the group numbers with a fire command. Maybe get your Second to control that. You can technically fire a thousand torpedoes all at once. Or you would have if you had a thousand Privateers, which you don’t. Oh, and there is one other thing you should be seeing on those specs."

  "What's that sir?"

  "You can use both sides of the ship for fighters. At the same time if you need to. If we need to fight on the move, you put half your fighters on each side, and they can cover a lot of space to your sides, while you fight the front yourself. Rotate the whole ship, and you can cover every direction except the rear. But all three ships have a fair sting in the rear as well, between all the engines. Orion perhaps the least, since you have no main guns capable of firing to the rear. But the idea is, if we're running, one of us will be behind you, and we can point everything behind us to protect you. We can also use the Hammer, so your fighters are your main guns, with one of us protecting your sides and rear."

  His eyes were glazed over. Everyone's were. I maniac grinned at them all again.

  "So I'm only half loaded at the moment?" asked Lacey, in a dazed voice.

  "Yes."

  He shook his head as if not being able to comprehend it. A thousand fighters on a Carrier used to be someone's idea of a good joke. Now it was only half full. Or was that half empty?

  "What's next?" asked Susan Bentley.

  "Lunch," said Dick.

  It broke the mood, and we did all head for the Mess on each ship, to eat. We had some time to kill before the rest of our ships arrived, and they all went back into stunned mode. I was grinning the whole way.

  I was still grinning at what was left of my food, when Dick spoke again. He was obviously troubled.

  "I don’t get it. I know you think things much further ahead of everyone else. I know you knew we were going in against the pirate Battleship before we went into Pestilence, because you stripped the ship down to the basics for a suicide mission, instead of bringing everything possible. What can you possibly see which justifies a ship like this?"

  I lost my smile.

  "What do you think needs to happen so a successful ground action can occur on Denver?"

  He thought about it.

  "Fuck."

  "Yes."

  "What?" asked George, obviously puzzled.

  Dick told them. They went silent.

  "Can we do that?" asked Grace.

  "We just might," answered Dick, a smile forming for the first time.

  Just as well I hadn't told them what I really thought was going to happen. Oh we'd have to do that anyway, but it was the least of my worries.

  We were back in the CCC, when Galactica and the rest arrived. Three Explorers, three Evac Carriers, three Escort Carriers, Fearless, Homer, and Bonko's Club, plus my five Super-Destroyers, my five Super-Corvettes, Custer and two other Assault Frigates, Greer's now eleven strong Gunbus squadron, and the entire Japanese fleet of eighty Gunbus and Super-Gunbus. Behind them, obviously following because the captains were curious where all my other ships were going, and without orders to the contrary, were both Dreadnaughts, Defiant, Courageous, and Undaunted. Chivalrous and Starman were docked externally to Dauntless.

  John Wayne wasn’t there, which showed O'Neil was the only one to control his curiosity. Or he didn't have much. Or he was busy with Battleship captains.

  Jane had moved the three Titans well apart. I opened a channel to all ships.

  "All captains are to release control to Admiral Jane please."

  I waited for Jane to give me the nod.

  "You are go for Park," I said to her.

  "What about the others?"

  "Two triangles make an oblong. Make them fit. See if you can fit the Cruisers as well, and leave a spot for John Wayne. Dreadnaughts last, once we know where the gaps are. If they don’t fit, they don’t fit."

  "What are you two talking about?" demanded BA.

  "Watch," I said, smiling at them.

  "There's that look again," said Agatha, in a warning tone.<
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  Vids started popping up again.

  "Don’t jog my elbow," said Jane.

  The three Frigates docked externally with Fearless. Fearless, Homer, and Bonko's Club moved towards the Titans first, each moving under a forward corner of a Titan. A hanger door opened above Fearless, and she disappeared inside Sceptre. Homer did the same into Hammer, and Bonko into Orion. The doors stayed open. Courageous followed Homer, and Undaunted followed Bonko. Homer appeared again, and moved to follow after Fearless. The hanger doors closed.

  "Homer is pretending to be John Wayne," said Jane. "It's close, but I can get them all internal. It was supposed to be one Super-Cruiser and several smaller ships, but two Cruiser sizes will fit. Some adjustments to docking facilities are being made now though."

  The next to move were the three Explorer ships. Each one aligned length wise under a Titan. Galactica under Sceptre, Enterprise under Hammer, Prometheus under Orion. There were faint clunks as Galactica docked beneath us. A vid showed us our underside, where Galactica sat snug underneath, using less than half our width.

  The six Carriers moved now. Gatherer to Sceptre, Preserver to Enterprise, Deliverer to Prometheus. After them followed a Corporate Carrier. The six triangle shapes docked one after the other, still leaving a lot of empty space.

  Defiant slotted up into an empty space under Sceptre.

  "I'll need to build some complete new docking arms for this configuration," said Jane. "Otherwise people will be stuck on the ship they arrived on." She paused. "Okay, I think I can reach Defiant now, but its close. But both the Carriers are way out of projected positions. I'll need to build new ones for them."

  The Super-Destroyers moved towards Orion. The vid changed to show her from the side, where all the fighters would poke out. Four of them attached to the top corners against the depth side of the ship, pointing the same way as the fighters would. The fifth did the same at one of the bottom corners. The Super-Corvettes joined it, so each corner was filled out with smaller ships.

  The Super-Gunbus' were next, docking alongside the larger ships, followed by the Gunbus', until all four depth sides of Orion were lined with small capital ships, all set to fire the same as the fighters would. They were all well within Orion's shields.

  This left the two Dreadnaughts. Jane looked at me.

  "Can you dock them too?" I asked.

  "Yes, but."

  "But what?"

  "But they're going to look a bit like dog's balls."

  Chuckles burst out all over the CCC. I let mine loose as well.

  "Charming," said my Mother, from the back of the room, standing there watching with my Father. Both were smiling though. Miriam appeared behind them, and I waved them to seats.

  Relentless moved slowly under Sceptre, and aligned carefully, moving up slowly, but stopped short.

  "Sorry, she won't fit like this. There's enough room, but Galactica is too high. Give me a moment to alter the hull plates."

  As we watched, the hull plates in the gap between Galactica and the two Carriers opened, and a series of large builder-bots emerged. Before our eyes, a giant long platform, with docking positions, was assembled. Ten minutes later, the bots were gone, and Relentless docked down the center line of Sceptre, but sticking out fully. Ten minutes after that, Dauntless was docked the same way to Hammer. Annette had appeared in the CCC, in time to watch Dauntless dock.

  "You never cease to do the outrageous, do you," said Dick.

  I winked at him, and nodded to Jane.

  She went still for a full two minutes, then looked up and smiled. In an instant, all three ships looked like the same boxes they had begun as, albeit slightly larger.

  "The ships have suits too?" asked Amanda.

  "Better believe it," answered Jane.

  On that note, we powered back to the jump point, cloaking before we came into visual range, parking beneath the fleet. Jane un-parked all the ships, and it drew exclaimed surprise from all over the fleet, as ships just started appearing from nowhere. Finally we uncloaked, in our bland box look.

  "Hell of an entrance," said Jedburgh, popping up next to the HUD. "Admiral, we need to talk."

  He said it in a 'now you're in trouble' tone, but the twinkle in his eye said otherwise.

  The senior Admirals met in my conference room for dinner, and we hashed out fleet dispositions for the morning. Jane popped up the navmap for the other side, and the aliens were only twelve hours away from discovering the jump point. There was a cylinder already formed, and it was only slightly off line. Once they found the jump point, it would only be a couple of hours before they arrived as a significant force. We'd know if the Dyson Sphere would hold, soon enough now. In theory they should wait for the cylinder to arrive before jumping through, but we'd not given them any reason to expect any resistance for a long time now. I expected the first ones to jump straight in.

  Before Jedburgh left, he gave the order for the internal shields within the Dyson Sphere to be turned on. The idea was to vaporize each ship as it jumped in, within a second of doing so. It shouldn’t give the aliens time to communicate the trap, and it shouldn’t have a debris problem. The latter had been considered as well, and there was a way of pulling any debris out, if it was needed. There was also several sets of backup generators and power stores, which could augment any shield which started to stress.

  It had been thought out really well, and had been extremely well built. Even if the shields failed, the internal surface would hold long enough to get the shields working again. But like all good ideas, it had a couple of fatal flaws. The question was, would the aliens find them?

  Afterwards, I had Bentley stay, and called in Lacey. We discussed situations and how we'd address them. If the aliens broke through in any force, and the fleet couldn’t contain them, as much as that seemed improbable given our combined firepower now, we at least had some options prepared.

  My parents were still on board, and we said our goodbyes with hugs, as they boarded a Gig back to Galactica. The evacuation fleets were going to do a fast run through Canadian space while they still could. Galactica was going to Alaska first. If they were granted the time, they'd continue on into American space, and we'd all meet in Denver, assuming we didn’t hold here. Dad didn’t agree with my reasoning, but he did agree we had to assume the worse, and hope for the best, with reality being somewhere in between. Mum simply accepted I’d see her in Denver.

  George had opted to stay with Sceptre. He was happy for O'Neill to act as acting captain of Fearless in his absence, as the ship's Jane avatar would after all, be driving the ship. The mission being ground support, didn’t include an active role for a ship captain in any case, where here might. I was happy with his decision, as we might well need three shifts in the CCC before we were done.

  After my parents left, I sat for a while tickling Angel. Aline found me staring at the wall, Angel asleep on my lap. I hadn't heard her come in.

  "Jeez Jon, you look like death warmed up."

  I couldn’t disagree with her. I kept expecting the Death system's avatar to turn up with a scythe, and tell me it was time.

  Aline did manage to bring me out of it, and I went to sleep more from sweaty overexertion than anything else. At least I slept. For which I was very thankful to her. Had I been alone, it might have been a toss and turn night.

  Twenty Six

  The first alien ship didn’t hesitate. It jumped as soon as it discovered the point. On our side, it simply vanished.

  We had good cam coverage inside the Dyson Sphere, and the destruction was broadcast all around the fleet, and then everywhere else. Jane deconstructed the vid, and we watched the split second appearance and disappearance of the ship, including the last frame where only a portion of the ship existed. Morale across the fleet jumped dramatically.

  Within a half hour, most people had become bored, and stopped watching. I sat there for another two hours, waiting for the cylinder to arrive. The number of ships jumping steadily increased, but the shields
held without any problems. Jane continued to deconstruct the vid, looking for potential problems. In a few cases, debris was formed, but it bounced back into a different part of the shielding, sometimes exactly opposite, and vanished anyway. We had to hope a live alien didn’t live long enough to get a message out. For now, it seemed we were on safe ground.

  Jane gave me a heads up on the cylinder about to arrive, and George came back to watch as well, given this was our main danger time. Grace had wanted to be here, but I'd made her go to sleep. As my third pilot, instead of a Second Officer, I needed her fresh when George and I needed to sleep. I'd made Jane enforce this on every ship in the fleet. We hoped this was a long wait for nothing to happen, but if anything did, we needed people on duty who were bright eyed and bushy tailed.

  The cylinder snaked all the way back to the Morocco system, with every spine system having feeds coming from every jump point, and in a lot of cases, a huge buildup of ships waiting to jump. I no longer even wanted to know how many aliens we faced. The number was simply too big to grasp. We weren’t parity, yet. But give it time.

  The front of the cylinder hit the jump point, and their full force jumped through as fast as they could pump them.

  The shields held. I looked at Jane.

  "We took a minor hit with the first ships, but it was a blip, and the shields recovered. Mostly. The actual loss is in the decimal points. In theory, we can keep this up indefinitely."

  I sighed. Test one, passed.

  The fleet was arrayed around the down jump lane, in such a way the Sphere would never be hit. No ship was actually in the jump lane itself. I'd never allowed this, and never would. The aliens had demonstrated they would simply ram anything ahead of them, and no ship could survive the cylinder hitting it at once, even badly depleted. Well the Titans could, Gunbus could, but none of the others.

  The fleet being as big as it was now, was also staggered back from the jump point, with Redoubt and the Carriers being in the fourth line of defense. Redoubt and Intrepid were aligned on a sideways angle, allowing all the Fleet One fighters to hide in their shields.