Hunter Legacy 12: Hero in Darkness Read online

  Ten

  "Sorry Jon," said Thirteen. "But yes. The asteroid jumped back into Death."

  "And we're still alive?"

  "Apparently."

  The old man was grinning at me.

  "How long have we got?"

  "The Battleship's shields are back up, so for now, until your air runs out."

  "Where is everyone meeting?"

  "Launch Deck."

  "Fastest way there?"

  "Follow me."

  He led me away across the rock, with Death following along behind me.

  It took us fifteen minutes to reach the edge of the ship.

  "Give me your foot."

  I stared at him for a moment, raised my right leg, and slipped my foot into his hands. He threw me upwards. It was like being shot out of a canon. I soared up and up. I braced for a hard landing against something solid, but he effortlessly caught me by the arm, and pulled me into one of the now open external airlocks. Death was grinning still, and it was freaking me out.

  Thirteen closed the outer doors, slowly changed the gravity so we walked around the walls to stand on the floor instead of the ceiling, and cycled us through onto what turned out to be the Launch Deck. I shifted back into 'slinky red', since there was air in here. He turned towards where the meeting point was, and I followed him, Death still following me.

  Team coms came on again.

  "This is Jane. Everyone sound off."

  "Hunter," I said immediately.

  "Thank Gaia," said someone.

  There was a chorus of names, and by the time I reached the meeting place for those able to get there, it was apparent everyone was fine except for Aline and her squad.

  My suit connected to an air point, and began topping up the backpack. I left it on for now, just in case.

  "Where are you Jane?"

  "Computer room. I'm directing repairs to engines and power plants at the moment."

  "Stay there then. How long before the ship can survive moving?"

  "Couple of hours at a guess."

  "Do you know where we are?"

  "No. I don’t have any sensors working yet."

  "Shock time people. We're in the Death system. The asteroid jumped out with us on it. The Battleship has shields again, so we are fine as long as they hold."

  "Or their troops come gets us," added George.

  "Jane, send every combat suit and combat droid here. Those of us here will suit up, and then we'll see about defending the ship to give you enough time to get us going."

  "Confirmed."

  "BA?"

  "Sir?"

  "Get everyone who's not in a combat suit suited up if you can. We lost Deck Zero so all the suits there are gone. All we have is whatever survived down here, or on the Cargo Deck. The latter will have to find an airlock to get in here through, since it's in vacuum."

  "On it."

  She was in a combat suit, so I couldn’t see any expression on her face. The suit hesitated as if she was about to say something more, but it moved off instead.

  "Anything we can do sir?" asked Lacey.

  "It's probably not safe."

  "Should be fine as long as we stay inside the shield. If we hug the ground and go slow, we should be able to at least survey the asteroid, and see what else is here. Better than not knowing an assault force is on the way before they arrive."

  "Point. Okay, do it, but be very careful. Let me know if you see anything I should know about."

  "On it."

  I checked to see if I could patch into Lacey's HUD, and found I could. So I found a chair, and watched through his ship's eyes.

  He emerged very, very, slowly. I looked for where the shield was, and found it was comfortably high up. Which it should have been, given the layers it protected on its way here.

  I went cold. I'd just realized we were on a one way trip to Darkness-land. And yes, Death was still there grinning at me.

  "Don’t you have anything better to do?"

  "Are you kidding? This is the first time since your last trip in here I've had any fun."

  The whole concept of Death needing fun gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies. I turned back to Lacey's HUD. He was out now.

  "Sir?"

  "I'm watching your HUD."

  "Ah. Then you can see the underside of the ship looks more or less intact."

  "Show me the front section."

  His ship moved.

  "Looks fine from here."

  "Move around so I can see the topside."

  He did so. Where there should have been ship, there was a significant cavern. Something caught my eye.

  "Lacey, zoom in."

  He did so.

  "Jane, there's what looks like a combat suit in the rubble underneath the front Flight Deck. Can you send an SR droid to pull it out, and check if it's one of our missing suits?"

  "Confirmed."

  Lacey waited, while an SR droid launched, and came around into view. It landed just short of the suit, the droid left the sled, pulled the suit out, and moved back to the sled. I could see it well enough to see the suit made no attempt to attach to air. The SR went back the way it came.

  "It's Wilks," said Jane in a heavy voice. "She's dead. The suit was cracked open by an impact. No sign of any other suits."

  "Thanks Jane. Lacey, continue your sweep."

  "Aye sir."

  I felt crushed. Wilks had been part of Aline's squad since the Alpha team had become an expanded team one. I'd never spoken to her, as she'd kept to the marine mess. But now I knew where Aline was. Somewhere under the wreckage of the ship, and the rubble it was resting on.

  I made a huge effort not to cry, and failed. Everyone made a point of not noticing, but I wasn’t the only one with wet cheeks.

  A short while later, Lacey brought me out of my misery.

  "Coming up on the Battleship sir."

  I started looking at his HUD again. The Battleship looked relatively intact. She was still firmly in the ground, and standing upright, but most of the turrets in the middle of the topside were missing, leaving huge rents in their place. My torpedoes had done significant damage. If only… No. Not going there. That way lay madness.

  The ship though was still intact, and looked functional. The engines jutted out slightly from the surface of the asteroid, and seemed to be working at full speed. So it had power. Well duh, it had to have power. Shields. Going somewhere we don’t want to. Get a grip!

  "Any sign of hostile forces?"

  "None sir."

  "Admiral, this is Brown."

  "Go."

  "I'm on the forward edge of the asteroid, and something very strange is happening."

  "How strange?"

  "We're, I mean, the asteroid is slowing down."

  "Lacey, any sign the engines are failing?"

  "No sir. All looks good from here. The ship damage is all in the center. And you can see on the other side where the rest of your torpedoes hit the asteroid and blasted a huge crater in it."

  "Then what's happening?"

  "Suit up boss," said BA. "We're ready to go walkies."

  Eleven

  Annabelle and George were still at the base of the access shaft with Amy, Dick, Melissa, and the media people. Angel was apparently asleep. I told them to stay there. They were quite safe. Carter and her people were also safe, holed up in the medical bay. Neither group had air since the decks were open to space, but for now, it wasn’t a problem since they were connected up.

  The rest of teams one and two followed me out of the nearest airlock. Jane had SR droids there waiting for us, and we climbed on. I had only a single standard Pulse Rifle, and my combat suit stunners. It was the best BA could find. Our more advanced guns had all been on Deck Zero. Those who'd already been in a combat suit had full gear though, so we had some of the advanced guns with us. Another week and we'd have had some completely new guns. But I'd known they wouldn’t arrive in time. We'd tweaked the existing ones as far as we could go with them in the meantime.


  I stood next to Jane, who was using a combat droid for an avatar. She looked the same as usual, but I could tell it wasn’t her primary. Thirteen and Death appeared next to us. It made an unusual sight. Three normal looking people with a crowd of combat suits, crossing an airless expanse of rock.

  We set off towards the Battleship, which looked like a mountain ridge in the distance. Lacey was doing guard over the top of us. The rest of 266 had spread out around the asteroid, and we now had complete coverage of its surface.

  Nothing moved, except us.

  Just before we got there, Lacey moved ahead and showed me the topside of the Battleship, using his HUD. I linked BA into the feed.

  "Got it," she said.

  The direction we were heading changed slightly, and we slid to a stop over the top of a hole.

  "Jane, make sure the boss comes in last."

  "Confirmed."

  I opened my mouth to complain, but closed it again. In a combat situation, BA ruled. I might be the senior officer, but that also made me her responsibility to keep alive. Since I wasn’t in good shape anyway, I let it go. Since these weren’t our normal suits for about half of us, there was no insignia on them to tell who was who at a glance. BA was one of those with insignia, and everyone was following her lead.

  BA went in first, followed by the twins, and I assumed by team two's Major. One by one, the teams followed, leaving me to drop in last. I stepped off, and activated the grav thrusters around the lower legs, dropping slowly down, to land in a wrecked passage way.

  There was no light at all, except for lights shining from the front of each combat suit as they walked away from me. BA was heading to the back of the ship, team two was going forward. Jane stopped me from heading after BA.

  "I've got a shield back up," she said. "The special emitters weren't damaged, but it's taken some time to route power from Unassailable and the Guardians. But we now have an anti-Death shield up, inside the Battleship's shield."

  "Oh that’s not good," said someone.

  "What?" asked BA.

  "I found a crew member. Human. Dead of course."

  "Cause?"

  "Well she's frozen solid, so it’s a bit hard to tell."

  "Where are you?"

  "Shield control, not far from the computer room and the CCC."

  "Jane? Want to take the boss and check out the CCC?"

  "On our way BA," I said.

  My PC popped up an arrow, and I set off. Jane followed me, and Thirteen and Death followed her.

  We found the door to the CCC jammed closed, and Jane and I had to use some effort to move it open enough for us to get in. The reason became apparent, as air rushed out. For a moment, I wondered how we'd managed to get it open at all. I should have stopped and worked it out.

  I headed in first, and stopped dead.

  "Fuck me dead!"

  "Bit hard to do in a combat suit Jon," said Alison.

  "What have you got…" started BA.

  Something leapt at me. It was big, and black, like darkness in a horrifying shape. I managed to get the Pulse Rifle up in time to get a shot off, but even though it hit the side of this thing, it didn’t slow it down. In moments, Jane had flown out the door to smash solidly into the wall on the other side, and I was smashed into a closer wall. My suit bounced off, leaving a very substantial dent behind, and I was seized and thrown the length of the CCC, fetching up under the main screen.

  There was a man there, gasping out his last. His uniform had Admiral's insignia. He pointed towards a console.

  "Data," he rasped out. "Thank you."

  And he died.

  I didn’t get time to think about it. The dark thing hauled me off the deck, and tried to rip my left arm off. The suit creaked.

  My sword appeared on my back, combat suit sized. I drew it out, and swung it through the middle of the black region. To my considerable relief, the sword cut through it, and two chunks of black and I dropped to the deck again.

  Jane appeared in the doorway.

  "What was that?" we both asked together.

  "The Darkness," said Thirteen. "In the flesh, so to speak."

  "But what is it?" I asked.

  I was shining my suit light onto it, but all I saw was two parts of black. I poked it with the sword point, but it didn’t move. So I sheathed the sword, and it vanished.

  "I'll get it back to the ship," said Jane.

  "Full quarantine. Keep it in space on the Flight deck, until we know it's not any kind of hazard."

  "Confirmed."

  "Sir," said Brown unexpectedly.

  "What have you got?"

  "The asteroid has now stopped, and is rotating to face back the way we came."

  I looked at Jane.

  "Nothing to do with me."

  "Any idea why?" I asked Brown.

  "As far as one of the boys can tell, the Battleship is using its maneuvering thrusters to turn us."

  "Well it's not being controlled from here. We found a Darkness and a pirate Admiral in the CCC, and as far as I can see, the ship isn’t being controlled from here."

  "It's not," said Aline. "What took you guys so long?"

  Twelve

  "Aline?" I stammered.

  "Well I'm not the Easter Bunny."

  I could hear a lot of team chatter going on now. I broke into it.

  "Sitrep," I bellowed.

  "Sorry sir," she responded. "My squad was by the forward Flight Deck airlock. The moment you ordered the Bridge evacuated, I guessed we were going to crash, so we ran for an external hull airlock and cycled through."

  "But the front of the ship is gone."

  "Yes, but it wasn’t then. At the last moment, we jumped. The ship flipped over as we went out, fortunately letting us drop free. So we ended up on the surface of the asteroid with a lot of dents in our suits, and nothing but local coms. I don’t know what happened to Wilks though. She wasn’t with us."

  "I'm sorry, we found her underneath the front of the Flight Deck. She didn’t make it."

  "Damn. Well we found ourselves closer to the Battleship than BigMother, so I decide to recon and see if there were any survivors here. We entered through a hole, and finding no-one, I decided to find the engine room in case everyone was dead and we could get control."

  "Asteroid is now moving back towards the jump point," announced Brown.

  "Thankyou. Any sign of life or ships out there?"

  "None," answered Lacey.

  "Good. Dock your ships please."

  "Yes sir."

  "Any survivors there Aline?"

  "None. There are three humans here. All frozen. And one very black thing, which also seems to be frozen."

  "Leave the thing alone. Jane will salvage it. You have control of the ship?"

  "I think so."

  Jane nodded.

  "Thank you for that. You do know where we are?"

  "I sort of guessed we were in the Death system. It's very weird going through a jump standing on rock."

  "Afraid so. And I guess it is. BA?"

  "Boss?"

  "Secure the ship."

  "On it."

  "OH MY," said someone, followed by the sounds of someone being violently sick.

  Inside their suit? Not nice.

  "What is it?" asked BA. "And where are you?"

  "It's Ramirez. Sorry. I'm in a mess hall. It looks like the crew were on the menu."

  I shuddered, and the chatter broke out again.

  "Sweep and clear people," ordered BA. "Look for survivors. If you find a hatch or door you can't open, leave it until you get backup, in case another one of those things is still alive."

  "Alive?" asked Aline. "Who found a live one?"

  "Guess," said Jane.

  "Oh." She laughed.

  "Jane," I said, "Can you take this ship over, and fly us the hell out of here?"

  She didn’t reply, but moved to a data port, and plugged in.

  "Confirmed."

  "What's our status?"


  "Shields are at full strength, but not as strong as I would have expected. I'm glad we got a secondary shield up. The ship is coasting as far as speed is concerned. Oh. It’s the same speed as their ships do. Boosting us up."

  "Take us back through the jump point, and put us on an up over course. I don’t want them to see us. If they are checking up axis, take a course where we avoid them, even if it takes us longer."

  "Won't they see us when we jump in?"

  "I'm not expecting anything alive to be at the jump point now."

  "Why so?"

  "Think about it."

  It didn’t take her long.

  "We just proved they need air to breathe, so they must go in search of a habitable planet now. Even if they expected this asteroid back, I doubt a ship that small has enough life support to last while the asteroid dawdles across Death twice, and loads up at the other end. Especially as it's not a support base, just a carrier."

  "It’s the carrier part which matters most. They dumped a fleet here, and left it to fend for itself."

  "So they are now looking for jump points?"

  "Yes. So we need to avoid the likely places for one, and do an end run around them to get back into Famine before they do."

  "Confirmed."

  "How's our ship coms? Do we have a ship ID?"

  "Yes, it's back up."

  "Good. That means as soon as we get in range of a comnavsat, our people will know we're still around. When that happens, better send Phoenix."

  "As in risen from the ashes?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm not sure that’s true."

  "What aren’t you telling me?"

  "Jon, I think she broke her back. I'm not sure BigMother will ever fly again."

  Thirteen

  I sighed. Relief at Aline being alive mixed with shock at my having broken my ship.

  "Get the repair droids to check properly when they finish with more vital repairs. Have those stuck on BigMother been rescued yet?"

  "Yes. I sent some SR droids to get them."

  "Where are they now?"

  "Launch Deck."

  "Move everyone onto Unassailable. Get the butlers to move everyone's stuff, or at least what survived."

  "Confirmed."

  "Angel okay?"

  "Not a happy puss, but none the worse for riding George down an access shaft. If anything, the three cats did better than anyone else did."