Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates Read online

  "You mentioned a Base and a Shipyard? How do you know about them?"

  "Joining the dots mostly. Hints and observations. Has to be a base there somewhere. And new ships have been appearing for decades, coming up the spine. Therefore, has to be a Shipyard there somewhere too."

  "A big one too," I added. He looked me the question. "One of the Battleships we took in Barnard's Star was brand spanking new. I enquired after, and Earth hasn’t built a Battleship for several decades, and none of the sectors core-ward have one. So it makes sense the pirates have a Shipyard big enough to build battlewagons."

  "Now you're interested!"

  Magnus had a grin on her face.

  "Jane?"

  "Admiral?"

  "Crunch the numbers. Can we take a Base and Shipyard somewhere around the Libya system, and salvage Prometheus, and still get home with time to spare?"

  There was a moment's silence.

  "Yes. But…"

  "Always a but. Hit me with it."

  "We'll need to run at almost full speed all the way there, not linger anywhere, and speed run the entire spine home. Should get us there a couple of days before the Door opens."

  "That’s too tight. It could take as long as a full day to take the stations. Or longer."

  "Why sir?" asked Jack.

  "The last one we took from pirates had so much shielding we had to use subterfuge to get on board and take the shields down, before we could engage the defenses. If they can build a battler, they most likely have several. Behind the station shields, they would be untouchable. We could batter on them for days and not take them."

  "So we need a Trojan horse." He grinned at me.

  "Elaborate."

  He looked hard at the nav map, which Jane popped up from his request. His finger pointed at three places.

  "These look good for being pirates. All we need is one of them, take it back to their base, impersonate the crew, give them something like my captured team as bait for letting us dock, and we got them."

  "Sounds like a plan Colonel. Bounce it off General Smith and the team leaders, and see if you can make it solid."

  "Yes sir."

  He left with a smile on his face, and a spring in his step.

  "Does that mean you'll do it?" asked Magnus.

  I sighed.

  "Yes, it means we'll do it. But let's be clear. You get the data, and any remains we find. I get the ship. Agreed?"

  "Agreed."

  "Was that recorded Jane?"

  "Affirmative."

  "Do you need anything before we leave?" I asked Magnus.

  "No. I brought everything with me assuming you would want to go at once."

  "Fine. Jane, quarters for Dr. Magnus."

  "Confirmed."

  Magnus left with Carter, the two of them whispering together like school girls.

  I frowned. In spite of the advantage of being able to salvage the other Explorer ship, this didn’t give me a good feeling.

  "Is there anyone still around with a claim on Prometheus?"

  "Not legally. The entity which built her is long gone. Earth sector might try to claim her as a historical relic though."

  If we pulled this off, I wasn’t going to give them the chance to.

  "Whisper in Melissa and Grace's ears, and have them launch Lightning's and blaze our trail. We won't be far behind them, and we won't be stopping at the jump points for anything. Get us moving. Light em all up."

  "Confirmed."

  Three

  The hollo ended. I buried my head in my pillow again, and went to sleep.

  I dreamt of riding through space, left leg on the right flight pod of Enterprise, and right leg on the left flight pod of Prometheus, arms outstretched, laughing at the cosmos. We disappeared down a light tunnel with darkness all around.

  Oddly, I awoke feeling a lot better. Something about the dream had broken my dark mood, and instilled some enthusiasm into the missions. Aline stirred next to me, but Angel was the first to get up, jumping off in search of breakfast. We made it to training on time, and I threw myself into the assault courses in a way I hadn't done for a while now. After a light breakfast, I headed for the Bridge. Like I’d done hundreds of times before, I plumped down in my chair.

  MEOW!

  I jumped forwards, and Angel jumped sideways. Jane started laughing. Angel looked at me accusingly, and leapt back up onto my chair.

  "What's this sitting in my chair business?" I asked her.

  She didn’t answer, but started to curl up to go to sleep again. Instead, I scooped her up and deposited her on her cat pad on the console. She looked at me disgustedly, but sat.

  "My chair," I said, pointing from me to the chair.

  "Cat mat for cat," I said pointing from Angel to her pad.

  Angel shook her head vigorously, and turned to face the view, ignoring me. I sat again.

  Jane was still laughing. I ignored her, and pulled out my pad, looking for anything first thing in the morning important. There wasn’t anything, so I put it away again.

  "Sitrep," I finally barked.

  "Now in the Delhi system. Beijing was clear. Next possible target is in Nepal, but should be jumping in here shortly. The Lightning's are on this side of the jump point, and will jump out as soon as it jumps in."

  "Ship class?"

  "Cruiser."

  I brought up the fire controls for BigMother, and made some adjustments. Want something done properly? Do it yourself. I was going to.

  Footsteps alerted me to arrivals on the Bridge. Annabelle took her chair in the XO's position, and Jack sat down in the Coms chair. I guess this meant they'd decided the Coms position was now second officer position. This seemed to be borne out by Abigail, our com tech, going straight to the vacant helm position, which Grace usually occupied. The Bridge filled up around me, as I kept making preparations. When I was ready, I brought up a hollo screen only I could see, and ran a simulation of attacking a Cruiser. I did it again four times to make sure.

  "Pirate," said Jane suddenly. "The Cruiser is a pirate. She's the Unapologizing. Lightnings have jumped. The comsat was destroyed prior to the Cruiser jumping in. They should have coms with whoever else they have up spine, but probably haven’t noticed they have no connection with down spine. Yet."

  "How long to intercept?"

  "Thirty minutes, assuming they don’t turn and run."

  I looked to Jack.

  "I'm changing the ball game this time Colonel. I'm going to lay BigMother up alongside one of their airlocks as soon as I have the shields down. Jane will jump a combat suit across to force a way in. You take team's one and six after her. Have the other teams standing by to follow you. You'll be using the front airlock on the Cargo Deck."

  His mouth was hanging open by the time I'd finished, but the alpha team were all grinning.

  "Yes sir," he said finally.

  He stood, and waved rearwards. Most of those present, rose as well, and trooped out. As soon as the last of them were gone, Annabelle started chuckling. I gave her a raised eyebrow.

  "Jack was saying this morning he thought he was getting the hang of you. Apparently not."

  I joined in with her chuckle. Jane received some instructions as soon as my chuckle downgraded to a smile.

  Twenty five minutes passed quickly.

  "Buckle up for combat," I said into ship coms, and buckled myself up. Those remaining, which included Carter and Magnus, did the same.

  I opened a channel to Unapologizing.

  "Stand and deliver!"

  "Fuck off!" said a voice, and the channel closed.

  "Charming," said Amy.

  I eased up on our speed, and nodded to Jane. The engines of the other ships turned off, leaving us decelerating to BigMother's normal, solo, cruising speed.

  I brought up the combat systems for real this time, and sighted in on the Cruiser approaching us. We came within Battleship gun range, and I squeezed the trigger once. Three big guns fired from Unassailable beneath us. The pul
ses sped away from us. I slowed us down even more, and rolled us into the same plane as the Cruiser. We were not quite head to head.

  The pulses mostly blew down her shields, which is why I’d only selected three guns, but they started to regenerate immediately. I changed guns.

  The question now was, did her captain want to play chicken or not. I fired again, this time with three Cruiser guns. Her shields went down fully this time, and she reacted by firing her own forward facing guns, before beginning a full speed turn away. I fired again as I brought us around to follow her turn. My shots missed, but this was what I wanted, to scare her into running. I pulled our speed right down, and brought us in on a line to come up behind the Cruiser. Her shots bounced off our augmented shields without doing any noticeable damage to them. I couldn't launch any of our externally docked ships, but the tradeoff in extra shielding was worth it.

  I fired again, this time at a much closer range, and their shields went down again. The Cruiser changed direction, this time heading for the jump point as fast as they could go. I crept us up to them, slowly but surely. I changed guns again, and as their shields started to come up again, I blew them down with Destroyer guns.

  "Stand by, Colonel," I said into team coms.

  I heard him giving orders in the background. The external airlock on the front of the ship opened, and I had a pop up view of team six waiting inside with one of Jane's combat suits. Six were all in brand new combat suits, which I knew they were eager to try out for real. Their chance was rapidly approaching.

  I tweaked our course slightly to the side of the Cruiser's, and rolled us onto our side in relation to her, effectively bringing her above us, while we were on her side.

  "Stay still, stay still," I murmured, as we started creeping up the hull of the other ship.

  My eyes were darting across screens in a regular pattern. Front airlock, HUD, hull cam viewing the Cruiser's hull, shields on the Cruiser indicator.

  "Damn," I said to myself, as the Cruiser started to regenerate shields again.

  I rapidly reselected several topside Corvette guns, fired, and their shields were down again.

  The position I wanted was just ahead now, and I angled us up towards the Cruiser. Gently, gently. I dropped our topside shield, hoping I'd not left it too late.

  "Jane!"

  "Confirmed."

  There was a slight shudder through the hull as ours came into contact with theirs. Between the two was the grav sled of a salvage droid, joining us together. I nodded to Jane and she took over control, in order that we match speed with the Cruiser if they tried to shake us off, but also to add some drag to the other ship so we slowed. It was something which needed precise calculation to do. I reconfigured our shields to surround both ships, and set them back to normal strength. At my next nod, Jane began to uncouple the linked smaller ships, which she could now do without needing to lower the whole shield first.

  "Colonel, go."

  "Gone," he replied.

  And I could see they were already on the move, jumping towards the side airlock of the Cruiser.

  "That’s bloody terrible parking," laughed Annabelle, and the others laughed with her.

  "True," I admitted. "But with what we have on the topside of the hull, lying flat against her was never an option. We don’t need any better either. I just needed to get the teams close."

  Jane was inside the enemy airlock now. Cam from her suit was showing her finger at a data port. The outer doors opened, and team six entered. Jane followed, moving to the inner controls.

  Team one was already cycling through into space, and moving after team six.

  "How did team six get to go first?" I asked Annabelle.

  "Amanda and Sam tossed for it. Sam won. BA was not happy."

  I chuckled.

  Our speed was slowing, as the Cruiser felt the extra drag of a ship considerably larger than it was, massing far more than her engines were designed for.

  Behind team one, some of the crew of Homer were now crossing over to the Cruiser. Homer's engineer's first job was stopping the Cruiser's engines before they burnt out under the strain of dragging both ships. Half of team six were heading there first, the other half towards the Bridge. Jane was heading for the computer room, with BA and Aline's squad, while the twins and the rest of the team followed towards the Bridge. Whoever gained control first, was to stop the Cruiser's engines.

  The orders were to stun, rather than kill. If possible, we wanted someone to fill in the gaps on where their base was located.

  Cam views popped up as the teams went their different ways through the ship. The pirates had no answer to combat suited Gatling stunners, and went down before the teams without putting up much of a fight.

  The Cruiser came to a stop suddenly. No-one bragged about who had done the deed. These were professionals, and I wasn’t going to ask.

  "Ouch," said Jane. She saw us turn to look at her, and went on, "The salvage droid just took the strain of BigMother for a split second as the Cruiser stopped. I'm afraid it's going to need a lot of work."

  "We still connected?"

  "Yes."

  "Good."

  Not that it really mattered. Bringing us together had mainly been about stopping the Cruiser regenerating shields while we boarded. By putting ours around the Cruiser as one big joined ship, their emitters wouldn't engage. Sometimes safety features worked in your favour.

  We watched cams as the teams slowly swept through the entire ship. Finally the word came back. The ship was ours.

  I ordered the airlocks closed, and the Unapologizing to be docked to BigMother's front airlock. Once she was, we transferred our still stunned prisoners to the brig, and everyone left the ship. Jane now moved the ship to dock alongside the right Guardian. Once complete, BigMother looked symmetrical again, as Unapologizing balanced Homer on the other side.

  Once docking was complete, Jane moved us again, firing all the engines to bring us back up to near top speed.

  Annabelle took herself off to debrief the teams.

  I settled into my Ready Room.

  A good morning's work was complete. I did some math, and told Jane to slow us slightly, so we'd be entering the Libya system at six the next morning. Speed was of the essence, but Libya was effectively enemy territory, and I wanted us in day mode and fully rested when we jumped in.

  Four

  The jump into Libya was routine, as had passage across the Nepal and Egypt systems during the night.

  The Bridge was full of the usual suspects, with Grace the only notable absentee. She and Melissa were in the process of landing.

  Unapologizing was crewed and ready to drop off. Jane had scanned every crew member, and created a duplicate using security droids and belt suits. The ship to all intent and purposes, was crewed exactly as she was supposed to be, even down to voices. All we needed to do, was dock her to BigMother, to transfer over team six as their prisoners.

  While we were waiting for Jane to isolate where the pirate base was from Unapologizing's database, BigMother was on course for the Algeria jump point, so as not to upset anyone whom might be watching. As far as we could see, no-one was. There was not a lot of traffic about in this system, and all of it was moving on the lines between jump points and planet.

  As well as Algeria and Egypt, the system connected to Brazil. All three were spine systems, as it branched two ways from here. Brazil led off into the Latin American sector, joined with Morocco. The African sector began with Morocco on the core end, and rejoined the spine in Egypt. Both sectors were the youngest of all of them, populated by necessity rather than choice, once Earth had become too polluted and dangerous to live on. As the last of those to leave, they'd had to go down spine to where the other richer sectors had chosen not to go.

  "It's not here," said Jane finally.

  "How paranoid can you be?" asked BA.

  "That paranoid," answered Dick.

  "Jane, point us at the planet. I'll be in my Ready Room, begging."

&
nbsp; There was a mixture of puzzled looks and grins as I rose.

  Once seated at my desk, I opened a vid to John Slice.

  "John, old buddy, mate. Need a favour. I'm in the Libya system. Yes, I'm going the wrong way, I know. It's important though. Trust me. I'm still on timetable, but time is now a short commodity."

  "If you have an Explorer around these parts which could get here inside the next few hours, can you please redirect it as a matter of urgency? I guess you don’t, in which case, I humbly beseech your indulgence to send us the specs for your jump point detector."

  I paused to let him react to the request.

  "I know this is unusual. Consider it a one shot deal. I'll owe you a big favour, and I'll promise to destroy it once it's done its job. But I need to find a jump point the pirates are using, and I only have a rough idea of where it is. We know there's a base here somewhere, suspect it has a battlewagon sized Shipyard as well, but the ship we just took doesn’t have the location in its database anywhere. Presumably the captain has it, but short of torture, he's not likely to give it up. I'd prefer not to have to go there."

  "So, I need your expertise, and since you know my timetable verses where I currently am, you know I need it now. The clock's ticking. Hunter out."

  Melodramatic, but I sent it off anyway.

  I sat there for fifteen long minutes, drumming my fingers on the desk.

  Finally, the email I was waiting for arrived.

  "Jon, buddy, mate."

  Slice was milking it, I could tell.

  "It so happens I have a Camel in the Brazil system right this moment, heading for Columbia. I've turned it around. If I did the math right, it should jump into Libya just before you reach the jump point. You owe me."

  He grinned, and the vid ended.

  "Jane, Brazil jump point please. Move us."

  "Confirmed."

  I checked the nav map, and there was a Camel where he said there was, with the name of "Tag'Em". As a ship name, and presumably a call sign as well, it showed a driver with a sense of humour, and possibly also the ridiculous. Could be an interesting person to work with.

  We were a good four hours away from the jump point, and going back onto the Bridge, I announced that.