Hunter Legacy 12: Hero in Darkness Read online

  go to glory!

  Though ye die in combat

  gory,

  Ye shall live in

  song and story,

  Go to immortali-

  ty! Go to

  death and go to

  slaughter;

  Die, and every Cornish

  daughter With her

  tears your grave shall

  water, Go, ye

  heroes, go and

  die! Go ye

  heroes, go to

  immortality, Go ye

  heroes, go to

  immortality! Tho' ye

  die in combat gory, Ye shall

  live in song and story; Go to

  immortality!

  Alana, Alison and Aline:

  Go, ye

  heroes,

  Go to

  glory!

  Ye shall,

  Ye shall

  live in

  story. Go to

  death and go to

  slaughter; Die, and

  every Cornish

  daughter With her

  tears your grave shall

  water, Go, ye

  heroes, go and

  die! Go ye

  heroes, go to

  immortality, Go ye

  heroes, go to

  immortality! Tho' ye

  die in combat gory, Ye shall

  live in song and story; Go to

  immortality!

  The next to stand was Dick, of all people, and he was dressed in the uniform of a Victorian Major General.

  Away, away!

  Yes, yes, we go.

  This Darkness slay.

  Tarantara!

  Then do not stay.

  Tarantara!

  Then why this delay?

  All right, we go.

  Yes, forward on the foe! (Everyone)

  Yes, forward on the foe! (Everyone)

  Yes, but you don't go!

  We go, we go

  Yes, forward on the foe! (Everyone)

  Yes, forward on the foe! (Everyone)

  Yes, but you don't go!

  And then in two parts…

  Women:

  At last they go,

  At last they go, at last they go!

  At last they really, really go!

  Men:

  We go, we go,

  We go, we go,

  We go, we go, we go, we go!

  And it ended. I couldn’t help myself. I applauded loudly, as did all of us who hadn't sung.

  Silence followed, although everyone was grinning at everyone else. Suits turned back into 'slinky red'.

  A voice broke the silence, from among the media people.

  "And there you have it folks. What does an elite mercenary unit do in the face of overwhelming odds, and imminent death? They sing Gilbert and Sullivan."

  "You're all mad," muttered the cam operator.

  "What does that make you?" asked Amy.

  "Battlestations!" announced Jane.

  Seven

  The team rose and left quickly.

  "It's time for the combat team to don battle armour and prepare to defend the ship if it comes to that," said one of the media people.

  The rest of them nodded, as they'd all picked it up through their external pickups. They started sub-vocalizing again.

  "Be right back," I said to George.

  He nodded, and I left quickly as well. I ducked into the fresher off my Ready Room, and emptied my bladder. I didn’t know how long it would be before I'd have another chance, so I took the opportunity now. I also splashed some water on my face, and dried it off slowly. I looked in the mirror. The bearded face of a warrior looked back. I nodded to it, and went back to my chair on the Bridge. George quickly left as well, and I noticed Annabelle was absent too.

  Within minutes, those coming back were back. Over the next twenty minutes, the team checked in from various locations around the ship, where an enemy was most likely to try to make an entrance.

  Of course, if we were boarded, we'd be in serious trouble. And not from the boarders. It would mean our shields would be down, and we'd all be exposed to the radiation of the Pestilence nebulae. I pushed that thought aside. We still had to cover the bases.

  "Everyone buckle up," I said, looking around those left on the Bridge.

  "Admiral? Do you have time for a few questions?"

  I swiveled around to face the media people.

  "Sure."

  "What are your people doing at the moment?"

  "Preparing for the attack. The Marines are moving into position with combat droids in case we get boarded. The pilots are in their ships ready to launch if necessary. A Dropship is standing by in case it's needed. The Commander at the Helm is ready to back me up if something happens to me. The General here is preparing advice for me, in case I need it. The Colonel over there is controlling the ship, but will pass it to me before we engage. Everyone has a role to play, and we're going about preparing for it."

  "What's he doing," asked a different one, referring to Dick.

  "Pretending I'm not scared shitless," he responded.

  "He's comic relief," I added with a grin.

  "And what's the plan Admiral?"

  "We have a target. We're going in hard at it, trying to ignore as much as we can on the way in, although I expect we'll be fighting a good portion of the remaining way. The idea is to hit their core ship mover with everything we have, and hope to take it out in one pass, and then fight our way out the other side again, where we'll up our speed to maximum, and do a long end around to beat any that go past us back to the jump point. The main object is to destroy their means of bringing more ships and troops across the Death system. If we can do that, we should limit their incursion to what's already here."

  "Will it work?"

  "I'll let you know in about an hour. Or not."

  "Or not?"

  "He can't tell you if we're all dead," said Jane.

  I turned and nodded to her, checked back to see if there were any more questions, and returned to facing the HUD.

  We waited in silence, watching the dots get closer.

  "Ten thousand kilometers to vanguard force, reducing speed," said Jane into ship coms.

  We slowed. Team coms came on as well as ship coms.

  The Battleship guns ready icon lit up. We were in range, but they didn’t know we were here yet. Or so it looked. The Cruiser guns ready icon lit up. Still no reaction. Destroyer guns ready.

  I took the controls from Jane and nudged us slightly to miss the biggest concentration of ships ahead. But I held my fire.

  "Send the first contact message again," I said to Jane.

  "Confirmed. Sent." She paused. "No response."

  The range continued to wind down, until it reached one hundred kilometers.

  "Kobayashi Maru," I said to Jane.

  "Confirmed. Sent."

  "The no-win scenario," I said for the media people. "In old time science fiction, it was the name given to a test of character, where the Commander had to choose to go in to certain death in order to do the only right thing possible."

  "Shit," said the cam operator. "Do you have to be so pessimistic?"

  No-one answered. At ten kilometers, space around us lit up, as laser fire came in from an arc ahead of us. Our shields took a ten percent hit. Enemy ships shot passed us, but kept on going the way they were pointed. None of them turned to try and re-engage us.

  "Bring the secondary shields online," I ordered.

  Now none of our fighters could launch. We were using their shield power and emitters to put a second shield around the whole ship.

  "Confirmed. Shield active. Nine thousand hits generated a ten percent drop in shield strength."

  "I guess we know for sure they are hostile now."

  Small ships were streaming past us now in a seemingly constant never ending stream, but we were going way too fast for them to get more than a single shot at us. Those right in front of us smashed directly into o
ur forward shield, and Jane started tweaking the shields to keep the forward as high as possible, since it was the main one being hit.

  "Each individual pulse hitting us is not very powerful, but the cumulative of so many hitting us at the same time, is going to wear us down eventually."

  "Death by a thousand cuts?"

  "Multiplied up a lot, but yes."

  "Let's try a test firing of clearing the path ahead. Destroyer guns only."

  They fired, and instantly there was clear space ahead of us. It was rapidly filled as we flew into the next waves coming at us. But it did give our front shield a very short respite.

  "Are they shielded at all?" asked George.

  "Not as far as I can detect," responded Jane.

  I frowned.

  "Point all the Point Defense straight ahead, and fire them all at once."

  Nothing happened. I stared at Jane.

  "They won't fire."

  "Why not?"

  "They are not a missile, and don’t register as a ship hull, so the controlling software wont fire because it doesn’t consider them a threat. Running into them isn’t considered an actual threat, since the pilot is supposed to be avoiding hitting anything."

  "But we can fire the other guns?"

  "Manually."

  "Redefine the enemy ships as missiles," suggested Annabelle.

  "Do it," I told Jane.

  Immediately all the Point Defense guns all around the ship began firing in all directions at once. Ships exploded, became debris, or just continued on balistically. The number impacting our shields dropped, but we still hit a great deal of debris instead.

  "Mosquitos?" asked George.

  "How we doing now Jane?"

  "Shields are still dropping, but not as fast. Eighty percent now. If this stays constant, we'll be down to about twenty percent when we get to the target."

  "Keep the Mosquitos for when we get closer and have more targets."

  "Confirmed."

  I opened a vid.

  "The enemy ships appear to be the size of a light fighter. They have no shields, and are vulnerable to Point Defense fire. All ships are to immediately redefine enemy ships as missiles, and let your Point Defense run amok on them, while you use guns and missiles for specific targets. We are saving Mosquitos for later, and will advise effectiveness if we can. Hunter Out."

  "Send it," I said to Jane.

  "Sent. Seventy five."

  We sat there, as the minutes to target ran down, and so did our shields.

  Ten minutes out, the shields started going down faster, as the number of enemies able to get a shot off at us increased.

  "Mosquitos," I barked, "but only at ships which can get a shot off at us. Ignore the rest."

  "Confirmed."

  The shield decline halted for a few moments, and then resumed, but at a slower rate.

  "How many ships have we killed so far?" George asked Jane.

  "I can't tell. But it's over the fifty thousand mark. But we're making kills along only a narrow corridor. They're spread out over a huge area."

  "How many already past us?" I asked.

  "Still effective?" She shrugged. "Half a mill? Just a guess really."

  The numbers were staggering.

  Five minutes out, and the shields took a big hit all of a sudden, and went down to twenty five percent.

  "Cycle the main guns Jane. Blast us a passageway. Try to keep something firing so as to keep them from seeing us at the end of that passageway."

  "Do the impossible. Aye sir."

  And she did it. The big guns fired in groups, always something ready to fire a moment later, and the way forward was kept clear. The shield drop steadied, and slowed again. I wished I'd told her to do this earlier, but I'd limited my thinking by the setup I’d done before we started.

  Two minutes out, and the target was visible to the mark one eyeball, now being the size of an average station. The question now was, were we going to get there in time?

  "Missile range," called out Jane.

  I almost told her to fire, but it would have been a waste. There was no clear line of fire for them yet.

  "Fire when they have a clear target," I told her. "Save the Battleship guns for the target now, and give it a full broadside as soon as it's in range. Cruiser guns too if you can spare them."

  She didn’t respond. Her mouth was tightly compressed. George's hands gripping the seat arms were white. I looked at my own and found them the same. I made an effort to relax.

  The asteroid was looming big in front of us now, the Battleship embedded in it. We lucked out, and the Battleship was on our side of the asteroid.

  It moved.

  "Hell," I said loudly. "They've completed unloading and are about to jump out."

  Jane answered me with a full Broadside, and every capital ship missile we could launch. And I pressed the torpedo button, and sent one hundred torpedoes after the pulses.

  "Shit!" yelled George.

  The Battleship had fired a full broadside at us as well.

  Our shields were on fifteen percent.

  Eight

  I wrenched the joystick to push us down under the asteroid. I'd been about to do this anyway, but now it was pure desperation. Why I'd thought the battleship would not fire on us was just beyond me. I must be absolutely fucking crazy!

  All I managed to do was change our attitude slightly. Instead of pointing directly at the Battleship, we were now pointing at the lower section of the asteroid.

  Most of the pulses going both ways hit.

  The shields around the asteroid failed, and most of the torpedoes completed the distance and impacted on the asteroid's surface. I’d guess about ten hit the Battleship itself, and …

  A full set of Battleship pulses hit the top side of BigMother, just behind the Bridge. I was instantly glad I’d left Custer behind, because not only did both of our shields get blasted down, but most of what we called Deck Zero vanished in a cloud of debris.

  The ship staggered, gravity and lights failed, and our suits snapped into full space suit mode and full protection mode, our feet locking to the deck using magnetics.

  Our engines failed, and we were left on inertia.

  "Everybody out of here," I screamed. "Jane, get them to the CCC. Everyone else, brace for impact!"

  Of course, I didn’t need to scream, since inside the suit, no-one could hear anything I said. But team and ship coms were still on and functioning, so everyone got an ear full.

  Jane was out of her seat and running before I’d even finished screaming, and she hustled everyone off the Bridge. George gave me a terrified look as he ran past carrying Angel, but he dragged Annabelle along with his other hand to make her move faster.

  They weren't going to make it. But being a couple of decks further down would probably save them.

  George knew what I was going to do. I sat there watching disaster approach really fast.

  "Engines back on line," said Jane, through room coms.

  I dragged the speed slider back into reverse, and rolled us right over.

  I managed to stabilize our angle, and get us positioned just right.

  Then we hit.

  Everything went black.

  Nine

  "JON!"

  The voice was a long way away, and it took me a while to focus on it.

  "JON, get up."

  It sounded like Thirteen.

  "Am I dead?"

  "No, but you soon will be if you don’t get up."

  I opened my eyes and groaned. Even with all my current suit could do, I was in substantial pain, mainly down my left side, which I found I was lying on. The Bridge was upside down above me, and I was lying on rock. I looked up and there wasn’t much left which was recognizable. The entire outer hull had been peeled away as far as I could see. There was debris everywhere.

  Above me and off a ways, was the rear doorway which led to the access shaft, and the stairwell. It was open to space.

  Thirteen helped me u
p, and I leaned on him.

  "How did I do?" I asked him.

  "As well as you could."

  My eyes bored into his, showing it wasn’t an acceptable answer.

  "The rest of the top of the ship looks like this. The front end of the ship is gone for about fifty meters from the Flight Deck up, so every deck above is open to space. Here, put this on."

  I finally noticed he was holding out one of the air backpacks. It was supposed to go on under the suit, but it was impossible to do here, since the suit was the only thing keeping out Pestilence. I slipped it on, and told the suit to connect to it externally, which it did. Now I had just over an hour of air I discovered, as my suit had been down to only 5 minutes.

  "Thanks. Casualties?"

  "Lots of bruises so far. The new suits seemed to have saved everyone, but I haven’t found them all yet. The pilots were best off, since their ships protected them better. Those in combat suits are also good, although several are missing."

  "Who?"

  "I'm sorry Jon, I can't find Aline."

  I couldn’t stop the sob, but I recovered quickly.

  "Who else?"

  "The rest of her squad. They were up the front of the ship, at the first airlock off the Flight Deck."

  "Angel?"

  "George still has her. They got thrown down the access shaft. They're all hurt except Angel, but they're alive and on air. Nut was in Grace's suite, and he's fine. He rode a tree hanging on with his claws, and landed right next to an air point. Max is also fine. I think he enjoyed it."

  "How's the ship?"

  "Below the Flight Deck, the decks still have air and everything works. All of 266 could launch if they needed to, but Lacey told them not to."

  I was glad we hadn't brought 617. The heavy fighters would have been thrown around badly.

  "Unassailable?"

  "Fully functional, as are the Guardians. Jane is working on getting shielding again."

  "Any good news?"

  "We're not being attacked. The enemy seems to think we're dead."

  He wasn’t smiling though, and looked like he had bad news to share.

  "What?"

  "There is one minor problem."

  "Spit it out."

  He didn’t say anything, but a very old Aboriginal looking man with a long white beard materialized in front of me, beside him.

  "Greetings," he said with a grin.

  "Oh Fuck No!"