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

  I had one more fear, but I shied away from it. The Law of Attraction brings you what you dwell on, and I was not going to feed it.

  We'd started with an estimate of five million alien ships. We'd destroyed them all, and had them replaced. Now? It was impossible to tell, since we didn't have the coverage anymore. But a hundred million was probably being conservative.

  The only reason we were still alive was my insistence on leaving while we could still handle the worst hit they could bring to bear. This was defined by how many they could bring through in any given second, and it hadn't changed. But when you looked inside each system, you could see the bottlenecks now.

  The only thing we had going for us, was the speed they could bring ships through each jump.

  So the dilemma I had was this. Did I continue trying to bleed them? Or did we run as fast as we could on the assumption that someone up the spine had a fortification built when we arrived there?

  I wasn’t being told. I'd made it clear we shouldn’t be told, in case someone who knew was taken by the aliens. Likewise, the media were not being told. And if they saw something, it was being actively suppressed.

  For now, I was happy with our progress. We were slightly ahead of the numbers game in regard to when the Door to Gaia opened and closed again. Everyone who passed through would be safe for at least the next year. But it was going to be close.

  Was it worth risking our lives every three days to bleed them for a couple of hours each jump point? Especially as in terms of the overall numbers, the percentage we were killing shrank every day?

  I thought about asking my senior officers.

  I thought about asking Central Command in Hawaii.

  I thought about asking the team.

  I did ask Angel. She said "Meow". And then went to sleep on my lap.

  I ran the numbers again.

  I thought about asking Jane.

  I wished for a moment I’d never left Gaia. Then I wished for something else. Just for a moment.

  "Are we going to do this boss?" asked BA, completely derailing my train of thought.

  Seven

  "How long has it been since anyone came down here?" asked Dick.

  I had no idea why he was with us. This was an Alpha Team gig, and it didn’t require a tourist. He should have been on Redoubt coordinating station security as people moved about the system, ready to start the journey up spine. Being safe in other words. Maybe he'd become a mad thrill seeker late in life though.

  "2284," said Annabelle.

  "Why do you know that so precisely?" he asked her.

  "The original Alpha Team was the last ones to go down. Our ancestors. They moved the last group of people to Last Hope. No-one after has ever tried. Until now. The previous nine teams to them, all died here."

  "Yee-hah!" cried George.

  He'd begged me to come along. We were making history after all. And he definitely was a mad thrill seeker.

  On the day humanity was finally abandoning its home system, we were returning to the planet.

  Conversation was actually difficult. Jane was flying Gunbus, and the rest of us were buckled in as tight as possible. Making us tighter, our suits were already in protection mode, although not covering heads yet. But obviously the triggers were all happening, given the ship was being buffeted by a hurricane which had never bothered to end after starting more than four hundred years earlier.

  We'd all left last messages behind with Jane, and I hadn't let Jane's primary come with us. Only an avatar.

  This was a risky thing to do, descending into a hurricane. Sure we had much more powerful engines than the last ship to come here had had, and significantly better shielding. The water being thrown at us was being atomized by our shields, but the wind could only be compensated for with superior maneuvering ability, and sheer speed.

  The HUD was showing a tactical of our progress down the gravity well. I'd looked up that last mission down here. They'd gone in through the eye in the center of the North Pacific. Even then, they'd almost bought a watery grave. We were going down over central continental North America. Not between the two giant hurricanes, but well inside the North Atlantic one, which extended almost across the continent, grinding against the Pacific one around the Rocky Mountains. Their mission had been under the ocean. Ours was underground.

  "Talk to me Jane."

  "Don't jog my elbow."

  I sighed. It was obviously worse than I thought, if Jane had no capacity left for chat.

  "Twenty thousand feet," called out George.

  "What's that in meters?" asked Agatha.

  "This is America," retorted George. "They do feet here."

  "Kinky," said Amanda, and received a giggle from several directions.

  I threw an altimeter on the HUD, and it was winding down really fast.

  "Shouldn’t we be slowing now?" I said.

  "Going as slow as I dare," said Jane through gritted teeth.

  This was pretty good suit programming, to show gritted teeth so accurately. Except I suddenly realized it wasn’t. This was her primary, and she'd been pretending to be a droid avatar. But she was now so taxed, she'd dropped the pretense completely.

  "You do intend to pull up sometime?" I asked as casually as I could.

  "Pull up?" she parroted, without looking at me.

  "Might be a good idea," said George, looking worried, his hands hovering next to the controls on his chair.

  We shot down through one thousand meters at a speed most ships made going the other way.

  "Brace for impact!" I yelled.

  And suddenly we were sitting on the ground. Not even a jolt. And seemingly ignoring the elements outside. I checked. Jane had added several more grav sleds to the hull. Between them, they were making sure the wind didn’t blow us over. Our shields were gone though, so solid projectiles blown along by the wind, were now hitting the hull. No threat, as long as we didn’t go outside.

  "Where are we?" asked Annabelle.

  "Right on target," said Jane. "The first nuke storage facility should be right below us."

  "How far?" asked Alana.

  "Hard to say, but I estimate there's about fifty meters of topsoil over the buildings themselves. I have the plans, but how much is left down there is anyone's guess."

  "Deploy the Mole," I ordered.

  George, BA, the twins, and Alana, all unbuckled, and left the Bridge. The Mole had been docked to our side the whole way down. Jane swept her gaze around the rest of the team, and they all left as well.

  Jane finally turned to look at me.

  "What's wrong with you Jon?"

  "What makes you think something's wrong?"

  "Duh!"

  "Don’t duh me."

  "Now I know something's wrong."

  "It's not a matter of anything being wrong."

  "What is it a matter of then?"

  "Nothing being right."

  She looked at me.

  I pulled up a screen showing the Mole turning to drop downwards, and watched it burrow into the earth below us. Damn. The plan had been for me to go down, and them to follow on grav sleds when I found what we came for. Somehow it'd been reversed, and I hadn't noticed it.

  I looked at Jane.

  "Can you reshape the ship's belt to put a complete shell around the ship and the hole?"

  "I can. I will. I have. Don’t change the subject."

  "What subject?"

  "What's wrong with you?"

  I sighed. She really did know me too well to be able to hide anything.

  "I'm tired."

  "What of?"

  "Everything."

  "Don’t be daft. How can you be tired of everything?"

  "Well not so much everything, as everyone. Not team. Not fleet. Everyone else."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm sick of being hated for no apparent reason. I'm sick of people doing stupid because they're too self-centered to care about anyone else. I'm sick of being the only one who cares enough to do w
hat's right, and not what's best. I'm sick of doing releases. I'm sick of the endless killing. I'm sick of it all."

  "Calm down Jon. It's me."

  I hadn't realized my voice had risen into a high pitched shout, but the echo of my words in my mind said it was so.

  "Tell me the real problem."

  I looked at her.

  "I'm not sure humanity is actually worth saving. I'm not sure it ever was. In some ways, only those in Gaia now, really deserve to be saved, and we could have done that by staying home. No-one here wants to be saved. Why are we killing ourselves trying? Why is any of this worth it?"

  "Jon."

  "Jane."

  "It's not our call. We who are in service to the higher ups do what we get told to do."

  I looked at her. She looked at me.

  "When did you turn spiritual?"

  She laughed.

  "How could I not be spiritual?"

  "Pretty easily I would have thought. You can after all read everything there is to read and make your own choice."

  "Jon. Bloody hell. You've been spouting spiritual stuff at me from the moment you turned me on. I've been with you on this whole journey, including attending when the highers called. They gave me this body. How could I not be spiritual?"

  "So it comes down to service?"

  "Yes."

  "So be it."

  She came over, pulled me out of the chair, and hugged me.

  Eight

  We jumped onto the sled of a salvage droid, and went down the hole the Mole had made. At the bottom we found an open area where they'd ripped off the top of the building below. We followed them in and found what we came for.

  After making sure the warheads were still safe, we had a team of cargo droids move them to Gunbus. When the store was empty, we returned to Redoubt, and offloaded into a special holding area.

  And did it all again. We stopped to eat, before doing it again. Late in the night, we stopped for sleep. In the morning, we kept on going.

  At nine in the evening, Jane popped up a screen.

  The aliens had reached the Wolf 359 Earth jump point. The cylinder was forming. The others kept working, but I stayed on the Bridge of Gunbus to observe. Because I wasn’t looking, it took me a while to see the single green dot on the Earth side.

  "Jane, what did you do?"

  "Nothing. It wasn’t my call."

  "Whose was it?"

  "Central Command."

  "What did they do?"

  "Authorized me to do nothing."

  "About what?"

  "The Earth Admiral had one last old Battleship they brought out of mothballs. But instead of sending it to the front, they sent it into the Corporate sector."

  "What for?"

  "Recruitment apparently."

  "Huh?"

  "Jon, it went to Justice Inc."

  "What's that when it's at home?"

  "The prison planet."

  "Ay? What did it go there for?"

  "To recruit all the ex-pirates, and anyone else who wanted to fight instead of be left there to be eaten."

  "Oh fuck! I’d forgotten them."

  "Yes, I know. I was ordered to ensure you did."

  "Who by?"

  "Central Command. They didn’t want you risking going all that way for the likes of them, but also didn’t want them to have no chance at all."

  "How'd they even know about the Battleship and what it was doing?"

  "It was in one of Dick's reports. Earth police didn’t let anything get past them."

  "What did it have to do with you?"

  "Well, I sort of let the Earth Admiral escape to the Battleship, along with most of his officers. I was actually surprised. Several of them didn’t turn out to be suicidal after all."

  "And what do they expect to do at the jump point?"

  "They're all still convinced anyone with guts can hold there indefinitely."

  I sighed.

  "So we let them die?"

  "Yes Jon. They chose it."

  "Should I apply that to everything now?"

  "Not everything, but maybe it's time you stopped fighting so hard to save everyone. You can't you know."

  I sighed again.

  "I know. But it seems wrong not to try."

  "You tried already. The rest is up to everyone else now."

  "You think so?"

  "I know so."

  The cylinder began to appear inside Earth system. Two minutes later, the green dot winked out. I sighed, and shook my head. What a waste.

  I started doing the math. We had about forty hours before the disk formed between Earth and its sun. Forty five more before aliens arrived in Barnard's Star. It was time to go. I gave the orders for the fleet to move into Barnard's Star and head for Israel, and Redoubt to start towards the jump point. We had several more places to visit down here before we finished. Between them they would just about fill our Cargo Bay, so there was no need for multiple trips now. I went back to work.

  That night, sleeping in my suite on Gunbus, Aline draped over me, I dreamed different themes all based on someone running. I woke up with "Run, Forrest, Run" echoing in my head. I looked it up. Message perhaps?

  By late afternoon, we were finished, and emerging from Earth's toxic atmosphere. The navmap showed us the extent to which the aliens were in the system, and Jane pushed us up to our top speed to escape them. I had Redoubt jump through well before we arrived. Angel was not happy when I finally turned up there, but I made the time to make her happy again.

  I was sitting there tickling her, when I realized I’d made my decision. As soon as she fell asleep, I went along to my Ready Room, spent some time looking at the navmap of the whole spine, and opened a vid.

  "Central Command. The aliens are well into Earth system, and their advance is happening like clockwork. We retrieved three hundred and nineteen nukes from Earth, in various delivery forms, but I don’t intend to use them here. It's now time to change strategy. From now on, I'm no longer going to contest the jump points. A million killed here or there is no longer relevant compared to their overall numbers. We are coming up spine now as fast as we can manage, evacuating the last of people on spine planets as we come. The outlier systems all seem to be advanced with their evacuations, and all I intend doing now is final evac for those without a ride. I'll rear guard as I go, trying to help stragglers keep up. But I intend to stay at least a day ahead of the enemy. The only reason I'm doing this, instead of just speed running to Hawaii now, is in case something changes drastically."

  I sighed.

  "My people are exhausted. Do the math. I expect you to have the down spine area for a week or so fully evacuated before we get there, so we can speed run the last section. I'd like to be in Hawaii well before the aliens get there. Save us an island or something where we can have a rest before they arrive. I'll see to the upgrading of all the ships we collected from Earth sector, so once we get there, my fleet will add to your defenses."

  I looked at the cam straight on.

  "I don’t know what you’re planning, but don’t make the mistake of assuming it will work. Or work indefinitely. I know for sure we lose all of Earth sector. But we know nothing of what happens after that. Hawaii is the next best place to block them, but by then, their numbers are going to be a big enough number that most people won't be able to comprehend it. They'll be able to throw ships through for months now, even without any new ones. My recommendation is build whatever you think will hold them, but send everyone up spine to Outback anyway. When the door opens, they will be safe in Gaia for at least a year. On this side, it might only be months, and once the door closes, so does any kind of safety."

  I lost my train of thought.

  "I'm sorry. I'm tired. Too tired to think properly. If the Germans have something planned, talk them out of it for me. I'm not going to stop and wait and see if something works or not. And I don’t want to risk the fleet when we know German space is lost. We need every gun for when it really matters."

/>   I sighed. And shook my head while I tried to think of something else to say. Nothing came to mind.

  "Hunter out."

  Nine

  "Jon?"

  "Amanda?"

  "What are we doing?"

  "Context?"

  "We didn't fight at the last two jump points."

  "No."

  "New plan?" asked Dick, before Amanda could say anything more.

  "More or less."

  "How much of each?" asked Grace.

  "More more than less."

  BA laughed.

  "What is the plan?" asked Annabelle.

  "Have you been keeping up with down spine activity?"

  "Have we had time to?" asked Aleesha.

  "Well you know that five mill we first took out?"

  "There's more now you're saying?" asked Aline.

  "Multiply it by twenty. At least."

  "Shit!" said BA. "I don’t want to face that lot all in one place."

  "I don’t want to face them at all. Not without a substantial fortification. We were bleeding them before to slow them down, because we needed to slow them down. Every minute helped save someone. Its all changing rapidly now."

  "I don’t see the difference," said Alana. "The sectors on either side here are just as unprepared as Latin and African were."

  "Yes, but there is a substantial difference."

  "What?" asked Agatha.

  "Latin and African really didn’t get much in the way of tangible warning. Corporate and Arab have known for months, and along with Earth, chose to do nothing. They're lucky now they get three systems grace before they're cut off."

  "Can't we do something?" asked Annabelle.

  "We are. The core fighting ships will rear guard the exodus. But I'm staying at least a day ahead of the enemy to make sure we have a decent buffer zone. The rest of the fleet will help evacuate the planets ahead of us. And we'll do what we can for stragglers."

  "But what about all the people left behind in Corporate or Arab space?" asked Grace. "Or unable to get out because we aren’t slowing them down?"

  "Supposedly there was an American General who said something along those lines in World War Two. His men were being cut down on Omaha beach as they tried to invade France. He said something like this. 'There's two types of people on this beach. Those who're dead, and those who're going to die. Now let's get the fuck out of here.' I see us now as being on that beach. It's time to get out of here, and those who are going to die, are just going to die. There's really nothing more we can do, without committing suicide ourselves."