Hunter Legacy 8: Hero to the Rescue Read online

  What I didn’t understand, was why a ship was so close to the sun in the first place. I had to ask to find out, where I expected it to be offered. Apparently this was a regular event, taking students on a trip to see what they had recently studied from a distance. I was appalled to find the passenger compliment was mainly kids in their early teens. The captain obviously saw my reaction on my face, and quickly broke the connection.

  The medical station not being large enough to dock BigMother at, a salvage droid towed the ship over, and pushed it in to dock. Medical teams swarmed aboard, and everyone was taken for treatment.

  Not long after, a medical shuttle landed on the Flight Deck, was taken down to the Launch Deck, and everyone on BigMother was subjected to a medical assessment. We were all fine, but the doctors insisted on checking us anyway. If nothing else, it proved the ship's safe zones were actually safe.

  After being told I was almost fine, with my left shoulder, which I was still having trouble lifting above my head, proving to be still on the mend, and my limp being all in my head; I found Amy waiting for me in my Ready Room.

  She grinned at me and threw a headline on the wall.

  HUNTER TO THE RESCUE AGAIN.

  I sat, put my head down on the desk top, groaned, and banged it three times against the desk. I sighed as I came up again, and scowled at Amy who was grinning wider than before.

  She waved at the wall again, and I watched a vid of BigMother overtaking and flipping over, before swallowing the ship being rescued.

  "How did they get that?"

  "Emergency services use the antique Hubble array to monitor any ship heading into dangerous parts of the system."

  "Why bother when you can't react fast enough to save someone?"

  "No-one seems to want to answer that question. I brought it up when I was interviewing the head of emergency services, but he ignored me. Funding issues most likely."

  One more capability of the ship now out in public. I wasn’t really happy about it. But there had been nothing for it. Doing things any other way would have taken too long.

  Amy left, and I tasked Jane to co-ordinate our ships to return, as the extremities of the ship cooled enough to allow them to dock.

  A screen popped up, as a channel opened from the Medical station.

  "Admiral Hunter?" I nodded. "I'm Doctor Hiram Boswell, chief administrator. Is my source correct in suggesting you're on your way to the Sirius system?"

  "That's correct. I'll be visiting Enterprise on the way."

  "Will you look out for one of our shuttles?"

  "Why so?"

  "One of our research teams was taken there a month ago, to study the reasons why the only known habitable planet in the system doesn’t have any life on it. The ship which dropped them off, reported they failed to turn up to be brought home. So far, I've not been able to hire anyone to go into the system to look for them. In all likelihood, they need rescuing."

  "I'm not in the rescue business, Doctor Boswell." A snort sounded from Jane through the com system. "I'm happy when I can help out, but it's not something I go looking for. Nor do I take rescue missions."

  "The media have been painting you in the role Admiral. I thought I'd at least ask you to keep an eye out for my people, since you're going that way."

  "I can do that. No guarantees though."

  "Thank you. Boswell out."

  The channel closed.

  Jane chortled through the coms.

  "I am not in the rescue business!"

  "Could have fooled me," said Jane. "You seem to manage it everywhere you go."

  "Huh!"

  I ignored the giggle which followed, and settled down to emails, waiting for all my ships to dock. I lost interest after a short while, and sat there looking down on the Earth.

  The shining blue planet pictured from the first space vehicles was gone. The ground could not be seen anywhere. All was thick cloud, which revealed the mega-storms which raged everywhere, like a linked system of whirlpools. It wasn’t weather down there anymore. The atmosphere was more liquid than air, poisonous and unbreathable. I brought up images of the surface, which showed the remains of the old cities, battered and flattened.

  I wondered how people could actually be so stupid as to deliberately let their planet die like this. Hundreds of millions had been unable to leave, and had died as the atmosphere became unbreathable. The few who had mutated, mainly children born into the polluted air, died when the mega-storms began to rage. Tornados had grown to the size of hurricanes. Hurricanes had grown to the size of oceans. Hurricanes in the north grated against Cyclones in the south. Everything died. From lack of Oxygen, or the violence of the winds. Some had tried to survive using the last of the submarines, and in one case, a specially designed underwater habitat. But even underwater, the pollution and mega-storms would not be denied.

  This was a dead world. Looking down upon it was sobering in the extreme.

  Three

  By lunchtime we'd set off for the Wolf 359 system again. Nothing interrupted us this time, and we jumped through late in the afternoon.

  Wolf 359, rich in science fiction lore, and very little else, was uninhabited. It was however a busy system, given like Barnard's Star, on the other side of Earth, it had five jump points.

  Two of these led to three of the only other Duchy's, or independent systems, even though they were technically part of Earth Sector space.

  Like on old Earth, Vatican was the home of the Catholic Church, and a completely independent state.

  Luxembourg had three jump points, one of which led to Monaco. Both were one system Duchies.

  Also leading off from Wolf 359, was the Sicily system, which fronted the Italian sector; and Paris, on the spine, which fronted the French sector.

  None of these five entities had shown any interest in me or my Duchy.

  My next intended stop was the Enterprise system, which was on the other side of the French sector. So our immediate destination was the Paris jump point, which we reached just before dinner time.

  I'd sent out the comnavsat freighter the day before, so we had nav information before the jump. There were no military forces on the other side, and we jumped through after a pause waiting for some freighter traffic to get out of the way.

  Dinner was our normal group mess in the Dining Room on Deck Two. After was usually some sort of visual entertainment in the theatre, and tonight seemed to be normal.

  Until I heard the opening of what Jane was showing tonight.

  A deep male voice boomed:

  FIVE.

  FOUR.

  THREE.

  TWO.

  ONE!

  I audibly groaned, and got a few quick puzzled glances.

  THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

  An incredibly simplistic ship rises out of an underground hanger, and a series of images give a speeded up version of the show to come.

  There were numerous versions of "what the fuck?", which Jane answered with the same thing.

  "Watch and see."

  At the end, everyone turned to me for an explanation.

  I sighed deeply before saying anything.

  "Yes it's extremely old. Made in the 1960's, using models and marionettes, which were a form of puppet. So yes, you could see the strings holding and moving the puppets and models around. They did a remake sequel sometime around 2015, using computer graphics. It was all remade several more times until the Earth was abandoned, after which it seems to have been forgotten."

  "I like it," said Grace. "Where did you get it? I've never even heard of it before."

  "The infamous Hunter library," said Amanda laughing.

  "Is Jane trying to tell us something?" asked Annabelle. "You know, we could take on that sort of role very easily. Between us we don’t need to worry about being paid, and we have the ships and expertise for the job."

  "I AM NOT IN THE RESCUE BUSINESS!" I exclaimed.

  Everyone laughed.

  "Sure Jon," said Alison. "Pull the othe
r one, it's got bells on."

  "I'm not! I can't help it if people need rescuing as I go about other things."

  "Maybe shouldn’t have rescued us then," said BA. "You started something that day, like it or not."

  I sighed again. The laughter around me intensified.

  "Well, I'd be Thunderbird One," said Melissa.

  "How so?" asked Lacey.

  "Lightning is the fastest ship we have. And One gets there first."

  "That makes me Thunderbird Two," said George. "Custer is the heavy load lifter, the one which gets the equipment to the rescue site. Sure, we only carry Dropships now, but the Frigate is an ideal size for carrying anything needed for rescue work."

  "So I'm Thunderbird Four then," said Grace. "The Dropship is ideal for atmosphere work, confined spaces, and even underwater if need be."

  Everyone looked at her. She was learning to be a Dropship pilot at the moment.

  "I'm Thunderbird Three," said Annette and Lacey together.

  They both flew Corvettes, which were ideal for general purpose space work.

  "What about Five?" asked Annabelle.

  "Cruisers or Guardians in strategic places along the spine?" suggested Dick.

  "It would be difficult for one team to cover the whole spine," said Annabelle. "We'd have to make up multiple teams, each based at a Cruiser or larger ship, spaced out along the length of the spine."

  I listened to the babble which followed, but only half listening. I knew what Jane was doing. Once the pirate threat to the spine was removed once and for all, there would not be all that much work for a mercenary company like ours. And with the Darkness coming, rescue work could indeed become much more important than fighting in petty conflicts. But for now, the last thing I wanted to do was have people sending me rescue missions. I didn’t mind helping people in need if I was on the spot, but I certainly didn’t want to make it a habit, or a living.

  On the other hand, it was a diversion for the crew. And it might make our daily training sessions more interesting if BA changed the routine to include some rescue scenarios.

  I left them all to watching the next episodes, and returned to the Bridge.

  The crossing of Paris was uneventful, and we jumped into France just before eleven, after which I headed for bed.

  The jump into Marseille happened during the morning workout. After a light breakfast, I was in my Ready Room when Jane pointed out Grace was doing training scenarios for Dropship Ops, down in the Pilot's Mess. Her grin was infectious, and after I gave her the nod, she created an interface into the training simulator.

  I looked up Grace's previous results, and sure enough, she'd done what we all did the first time, and splattered the Dropship across the ground in tiny pieces. It had taken her four goes to get a rough, but undamaged landing. Her most recent effort had been pretty slick, landing on a roof lightly.

  She was currently entering the atmosphere for her next run.

  Jane pointed to the climate controls, and I grinned back at her. With a quick tweak, the local conditions changed to a force five Hurricane. The Dropship fell into the storm, and was quickly blown a long way from its target. Grace lost control, and ended up smashing into a building in a completely different city from her target.

  She tried again. This time she anticipated the wind, kept control, and managed to smash into a building in the correct city. Again. The Dropship landed on the top of a building in the wrong block, and was instantly blown off, crashing down to the street below. Again. This time she landed on the right building, and used the maneuvering jets to hold the Dropship down, while her troops jumped out, whereupon even the combat suits were blown off the side of the building. Again. I reversed the winds, so Hurricane became Cyclone. She completely missed the right city again, having been prepared to be blown the other direction. Next time she finally realized the correct action, and aborted the descent when she detected the weather system over the target.

  I reset weather conditions back to normal. On her next descent, as she crossed the thirty thousand meters height, I lobbed a dozen capital ship missiles at her. She managed to take out four, before becoming tiny falling debris. Her second attempt ended the same, but it took eight missiles this time. On her third attempt, she made it through them all, and landed gently on the target roof. Before feet had even left the ramp, I lobbed another dozen at her. Most of the roof vanished. We kept this up for three more drops, before she beat the second set of missiles sent at the roof, so I gave her a third, which started raining down on her well after her troops were inside the building. Again, the roof vanished. The next drop, she avoided the drop zone completely after beating the first set of missiles, and sought out the missile launcher instead. Once she locked it up and fired an IR, she turned for the Drop zone. The launcher exploded behind her. The drop proceeded normally, but heavy resistance was encountered on the roof. Without me intervening, a hand held missile launcher took her out, the missile entering through the open troop door. On the next drop, she identified five missile launchers which could target her while still above a hundred thousand meters, and sent IR missiles at them well before she came in range of them. The drop went off without a hitch. I clapped her success.

  At lunch, Grace loudly complained about how hard the Simulator was, and speculated Jane's Christmas update had messed something up.

  Lacey gave me a speculative look, and I couldn’t stop myself grinning. His own grin came out, he gave me a thumbs up, and Grace noticed the exchange. I won't repeat what she said. Annabelle quietly slapped her down, emphasizing one didn’t speak to, or about, ones superiors that way. When Grace stomped out, she let her own grin loose.

  I suggested Lacey get some of the other pilots on the simulator doing their own work, but have them prepared to be inserted into Grace's afternoon session. His grin seemed to linger at the table long after he had left the room.

  I was back on the Bridge by two, for the jump into Toulon, which was uneventful.

  I quickly moved into my Ready Room, Angel taking up a sleep position on top of one of the lounge chairs, and changed Grace's next scenario to resemble my pickup of the Alpha-team from Pompeii. Except she would be dropping from orbit in a Dropship, where I had used Gunbus.

  Jane had included Pompeii's light air only fighters when she had upgraded the simulator, so I set about doing some practice flying in one. It was a definite come down from Excalibur. It was even a come down from a Gladiator, which was saying something. But it had the benefit of being highly maneuverable, and very fast over the ground. In comparison with the Python class Dropship Grace was flying, one on one she had all the cards. My fighter had six hard-points for missiles, while the Python had a twenty magazine launcher, and another twenty magazine torpedo launcher. The Python also had four Point Defense turrets, where my fighter had none.

  In theory, even a rookie like Grace ought to have no problems with me on my own. And after the first time, where I hugged the building line and hit her with a missile as she touched down with no warning, she nailed me quickly every time. Hugging the building line in a city with very small buildings, was exhilarating in itself, let alone trying to dogfight along the streets.

  I pinged Lacey to bring in another five pilots for the opposing force under my command, and we nailed her on the way down. Next time she was ready for us, and three of the guys spun in before she smashed into her target landing spot too hard to make it back up again. Next time she managed to take all six of us out, but once again, by the time she did, there were many more troops on the ground around the alpha team than I had faced, and the Dropship was destroyed on the ground.

  I asked Jane if things had really been that close back then. I'd used an SR droid to do the pickup while Gunbus hovered overhead, and I took out the fighters and missile launchers in Excalibur. I'd seen very little of the actual ground combat.

  Jane confirmed it had been that close. Even ten minutes later and the team's combat suits would have been useless, and they would have been overrun. No
wonder they had been so happy to see me.

  I changed the scenario again. This time Grace had command of three dropships. With the three acting separately, we fighters took out two of them, while Grace made the pickup and escaped. Successful mission, but losing two teams to pick up one was not a victory. Her next attempt saw all three Dropships act as a flight, and they quickly destroyed all six fighters, and made the pickup successfully.

  I changed the fighters to Sabres. The three dropships died very quickly. I gave her three more attempts, but six heavy fighters were simply too much for the three Dropships to cope with.

  Finally, I allowed her to give commands to Custer as well. The three Dropships came in with Custer coming down above them like a huge umbrella. The first time it worked, as Custer was able to fire off enough missiles to take us all out. While a Sabre can out maneuver a missile in space, it’s a lot harder in air, especially when the ground is close by, and a lot are being fired at it at the same time.

  The next time I formed all six Sabres up into a single wing in V formation, and we all fired missiles on each Dropship at the same time, from long range. It took all the missiles we had, but all three Dropships crashed. Grace hadn't been using Custer to best advantage.

  We did it again, and this time Custer started firing off Mosquito missiles, and ours were destroyed at long range. I tightened our formation, and we went in low and fast. Three of us didn’t make it, but just before I crashed, I saw my lasers take out Grace's ship. It was a suicidal move, but it gave the opposing force the victory.

  I wondered how many times it would take for Grace to catch on to what I had actually done in this situation. Three more as it happened. For each one, I’d upped the number of fighters ranged against her by two, so the final run before she twigged, was twelve Sabres against Custer and the three Dropships. I quickly realized too, that I was the least experienced of the Sabre pilots. Once I changed the ships, Lacey must have changed the pilots as well, to those who flew those ships normally. We did pretty well. We still always lost, but we always took out at least one of the Dropships, giving us the real victory.