Hero at Large (The Hunter Legacy Book 1) Read online

“What is the missile capacity of the Gladiator and what’s it currently loaded with?”

  “Twenty. It has six image recognitions still loaded. They are mid-range ones, as you saw last week, it takes three of them to collapse shields and do some damage.”

  “What do you have on hand?”

  “What do you want?”

  I told him. “How long to get the ship ready?”

  “We will run the time limit close, but I suggest we give them a media show to keep them occupied and convinced we are complying with their demands. We can show their people being loaded into the cargo hold, and make a big deal out of it being pressurized and life support being on. And it will take you a while to limp to the docking bay, and we can make sure they see some shots of you getting there.” He emphasized the word ‘limp’ and I took the hint.

  “Ok, let’s do this.” I must admit, even to me that sounded of false bravado.

  “Let me set up the media end of this, and I’ll be back to you when you should leave your room.” The General signed off.

  Amanda stood looking at me, hands on hips. “Are you really up for this?”

  “I think so. Besides, what other options are there?”

  “What can we do?” I told her. She smiled, and called her boss back.

  I pinged George with a request for his suit changing program, the one that used sensors for an image. He pulsed it back a few minutes later and I activated it and left it on standby.

  I left my new guns where they were. They had the wrong image for what we were about to do, but I’d be regretting that choice if they managed to board me. But that wouldn’t be easy for them as the ships out there were also Gladiators, and they were not designed for docking in space.

  I flopped down in a chair, and started thinking seriously. A short time later, the door opened and Aleesha, Alison and someone else came in.

  Amanda indicated the newcomer. “This is BA.”

  “Anne,” she said. “BA is a nickname we only really use in combat situations. Call me Anne.”

  “Nice to meet you. You part of the escort?”

  “That’s right,” said Amanda. “Alison will support you along. BA,” pause, “Anne will take point, and we will bring up the rear. We are going with guns out as if we expect you to be attacked at any moment. Of course, you might be, this might be a bluff to bring you out.”

  “True. But that would show a lot more intelligence than this lot has shown so far,” I responded.

  “All the same, we are not taking the chance. Is your suit on hair-trigger?”

  I checked. It wasn’t. I changed the setting to fastest possible reaction to danger. Then gave her a thumb’s up.

  We sat around watching the media coverage for a bit, and suddenly Amanda went still and announced,

  “Show time.”

  We formed up by the door. BA was going first. Alison and I were next, the twins bringing up the rear. BA had the door open and her gun through it a moment later, and we moved out behind her. I made an effort to limp as fast as I could, but the progress was deliberately really slow. We emerged out into the lobby. People standing there waiting called out “Good Luck”, and as we progressed through the station, many similar comments were made. Once out in the corridors, a station security team formed up on us as well, and it would have been a very stupid pirate to have taken us on. All the same, it was slow progress. When we finally arrived at the military hanger, the marine on duty waved us through, and the station security team took up position around the marine. We continued on into the bay holding the Gladiator.

  I’d not taken the time to really look at a Gladiator before now. It was an ugly ship. Cockpit top front, with a small cargo hold underneath that could take half a dozen pallet sized cargo. Or in this case, a half dozen people, in zero comfort. Under the cargo hold were 4 guns, fixed in place to point forward. On the top behind the cockpit was a missile launcher. At the back it was all engines. Entrance was through the living quarters under the missile launcher. The door was open, and a set of stairs was pushed up against the ship there. It was bigger than a short range fighter, which didn’t need cargo space or living space, but in terms of offence specs, it was well matched to a standard heavy fighter. Hence it was referred to as a Heavy Privateer. On top and beneath the engine section, I knew there were two grav sleds. But they were stored internally when not in use and I could not see at a glance where they came out. The General was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

  “You can relax now ladies, no-one is getting in here.”

  “If it’s all the same to you General, we will be staying on full alert until he’s out in space,” responded Amanda.

  “Suit yourselves.” He turned to me. “All set?” I nodded. “You have thirty minutes left before you must lift off, that gives you time for a quick preflight, although the ship has already been prepped by one of our people. However, you will want to make a few interface changes I’m sure.” I nodded again.

  I swiveled myself around the circle of ladies that had formed my protective detail. I looked each one in the eyes and nodded, and hauled myself laboriously up the ladder. It wasn’t really that difficult, but people were watching and the act wasn’t complete. Inside I found a marine, who helped me strap in and adjust the pilots chair to my dimensions. When that was done, he saluted me and left. The hatch made a clang sound as it closed and sealed.

  This was it, I thought.

  I pulsed my overlays and preferences specs to the flight computer and waited until a pop up stating successful integration appeared. I double checked the controls worked as I wanted them to by entering testing mode and working the joystick up, down, left and right and watching for my expected response from the ship. Correct so far. I pressed the right pedal, and the ship simulated rolling to the right. Good enough. I hoped I’d not need to roll left. I cancelled the testing mode. Next I went into engine tuning, and detuned the engine just enough that it ran like it wasn’t tuned properly by the techs. It would lower my speed a bit, but that didn’t matter to start with. Looking bad did matter. I checked the missile launcher and the order it would launch what. Good. Then I disabled visual coms and disconnected my harness.

  “Gladiator five nine, this is Sydney station, what’s your status? We have three impatient ships waiting out there for you.”

  “Ah yes, hi Sydney station, this is Gladiator nine five. I think I’ve found the on switch now. Should be good to go in a few minutes.” I intentionally gave the wrong call sign. The game had begun. I grinned to myself.

  “We will pass that on Gladiator five nine.”

  The last thing I had to do was change my suit. I stood up, selected full space suit and immediate connection to air. The suit formed around me instantly, forming a large clear bubble around my head, and I lifted my feet to let it seal underneath. Then I sat and strapped back in, and the suit connected to the chair. I checked that air was flowing through the pipes now connecting me to the air supply built into the chair, and that the chair was being fed properly from life support. I had no illusions about what was coming and it was not worth taking chances with details. I also checked on the cargo hold. Six unhappy men in there. I checked the seal on the door, and code locked it so that only I could open it. Didn’t want them coming through at the wrong moment. I didn’t know if they could, but I wasn’t taking the chance.

  I sighed heavily. And did it again.

  I accessed flight control, and triggered startup. All systems showed green. I was good to go.

  I glanced out the cockpit side viewport. My send-off committee was standing just inside the hanger door. They saluted me, and I threw them something like a salute back. They quickly exited the hanger and the door sealed.

  “Sydney station from Gladiator ninety nine, ready to depart. Still got air and a door.”

  “Gladiator five nine from Sydney station, ready to depart copied. Stand by on the door.”

  There was a short pause during which I started sweating inside the suit. I turned up the
cooling. The door started to open. I kicked the landing thrusters a bit and the ship rose. A little wobble on the joystick and the ship swung away from the door and completely flattened a waste receptacle by the wall.

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, are you ok down there?”

  “Gladiator fifty five to Sydney station, sure, why do you ask?”

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, you are cleared to depart. No traffic of any kind ahead of you.” I’m not sure who the reassurance was for.

  At the moment, I was enjoying myself. This was my part of the show. The door was gone now, so I pushed in minimal thrusters. The ship moved out of the landing bay and into the flight path and I turned towards the external exit. I had barely enough speed to control the ship, but I had no intentions of making a fast exit. I made a show of wobbling badly as the ship exited the station and I continued straight on.

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, have you forgotten something?”

  “Gladiator five to Sydney station, don’t think so.”

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, are you planning on landing any time soon?”

  “Shit.” I grinned and selected landing gear retraction. The landing struts disappeared. I allowed my wobble to lessen a bit. I grinned again in anticipation of the next message. It might have been scripted but this was purely on the spur of the moment.

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, are you aware of where your reception committee is waiting?” My grin got bigger.

  “Gladiator nineteen to Sydney station, am I going the wrong way?”

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, affirmative.”

  “WILL YOU GET YOUR ARSE OVER HERE NOW SONNY OR WE WILL COME GET YOU AND YOU WILL NOT LIKE THAT.”

  I let that slide without comment, but immediately made a course change, with a major wobble in it, into their general direction. I brought up the combat systems, but kept the weapons offline for now. I cancelled the engine detune and brought all other systems into combat readiness. I upped the speed to about half power. At this point, I was about fifty thousand meters from the pirates. A pop up warned me I was flying without shields. I knew that, but that was part of the game too.

  At ten thousand meters, with the station well behind me now, I heard “good luck”. I wasn’t sure where it came from, but I was glad to hear it. At five thousand meters, I turned directly towards them, sighting on the leader. I didn’t have a target lock yet. I brought up shield control on the console and held my finger over the button.

  At one thousand meters, the lead ship got a target lock on me and fired three missiles. My finger thumped the shields on button and they sprang up around the ship just before the first missile slammed into the front shield like a javelin aimed between my eyes. The ship shuddered and the second missile slammed into the same place. The shield almost went down. I held my breath, and at the last instant I pulled back on the stick. The third missile still slammed into the front shield and it went down, followed by a loud clang as the cargo bay door exploded inwards. Oops. That wasn’t the only damage though, as I could see a hairline crack form in the front view screen. I didn’t wait for it to go any further. I brought up weapons and immediately sent off six ‘fire and forget’ missiles, at the same time I pushed the throttle forward to the stops and the ship screamed over the lead ship. I immediately locked target on the cockpit of the second ship, and fired off three image recognition missiles. Then I threw the ship around to the right, not bothering to roll. Laser shots went past on my left, showing the third pilot had anticipated me going left instead of right. Logically, that was the wise choice as right handed pilots find it easier to turn left under stress. I brought up shield access again and quickly evened out all the shields, restoring some protection for my front section. I had less all round now, but at least I had some in front.

  The front viewport was cracking rapidly now, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to it. I locked the third ship and sent three more IR’s after it. The lead ship was now coming up behind me, and I juked out of his line of fire, while I locked him and sent him three IR’s. By this time, the scanner was showing three red ships and a lot of orange dots representing missiles. A ship appeared in front of me and I pulled the gun trigger. Nothing happened. I glanced at the gun icons on the display and they were paled out. I activated them, and only two came up. I pulled the trigger and two laser blasts headed off into space. At least something worked down there. Lasers started hitting the rear shield and I juked again hard, trying to slide around enough to get a shot at another ship. At that point the ship behind me staggered and practically stopped. Its shields were out at the rear and down in most other parts and the rear section of the ship showed all red. A missile slammed into my front shield again, and I flipped the ship end for end and the next two slammed into the side. The ship shuddered but the shields held. I got a target lock on one of them and fired off another IR. I was running out of them.

  Suddenly the front view screen exploded and I was showered with shrapnel although most of it went out. My suit held. I was still breathing although I was breathing heavily. One of the remaining ships, obviously thinking I was done, straightened up and aimed to come alongside me. As he did, a missile slammed into his side and three more went into his front view screen. The ship staggered, then slowed and started to drift. The third ship was off to the other side and I started a turn towards it. Then it too took a missile in the side and two into the front. Again, it stopped and started to drift. I figured the first hit on each ship was the ‘fire and forget’, and the others following were the IR’s. FF’s were slower heavy load missiles that packed a significant punch. But once fired, as the name implies you had no control over what they went after and where they hit. But I’d fired them off precisely, because to a fighter, they were a credible threat that could not be ignored, and thus would also be a major distraction for the pilots. Hard to know how many hit, but it looked like each ship got one or two of them, which is what I’d hoped.

  I eased back on the throttle, turned gently around so I could see all three ships, and came to a stop. I took a deep breath, held it for a moment and released it. I took stock. No front view screen, just open to space. Four remaining missiles. The whole front of the ship showed red on the damage control screen. Thirty percent shields remaining, but slowly starting to rise again.

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, are you still with us?”

  “Gladiator five nine to Sydney station, that’s an affirmative.” I grinned.

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, glad to hear it.” And he was too. I could hear it in his voice and there were shrieks of joy going on in the background.

  I checked on life support. Nominal. I could see some surface damage around the cockpit, but nothing had impacted with any of the life support stuff. So while the ship was open to space, I was still in good shape.

  Eleven

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, we show a ship coming through the jump point. Do you copy?”

  “Gladiator five nine to Sydney station, I see it, thanks.”

  I tagged it and ran it through the guild files. It immediately went red on my scanner, and information popped up showing there were twenty four outstanding bounties on the pilot. Then I noticed his name and froze. Loctan Santiago. Obviously a relative come to gloat at my demise.

  I quickly checked the status of the other three ships. Two of them still had shields up, so I left mine up. One still had a weapons lock on me, so something was still working over there, even if the pilot wasn’t. I turned my coms off. I didn’t want to have to reply to anyone and wanted it to appear I didn’t have any. I sat and waited for him to come on. As luck would have it, I was almost pointed directly at him, and from his perspective, I looked like a wreck. Before he could get into range, I activated the suit program and hunted for a photo of a man in a spacesuit with blood all over him and a broken helmet. I fed that to the sensor input of the suit program and my su
it changed to look like I’d been killed in the explosion even though I’d had a conventional suit on. I also let go of the controls, and let the ship go into a slight drift.

  He came on at top speed, slowing as he came in range. I hung in the seat without moving, trying to look as much as possible like a corpse. He came to a stop not far away, well within point blank range. I watched as two grav sleds emerged. Immediately I got a lock on him and fired three IR’s at him. They crossed the distance in seconds, and blew through his cockpit. The ship shuddered and started tumbling backwards slowly.

  I turned the coms back on. Immediately there was a worried voice.

  “I say again, Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, are you alright.”

  I couldn’t help it, some slang from a very old flat screen came to me and I replied “That’s a big ten four good buddy. Gladiator five nine is A-Okay.”

  There were screams of delight coming through as the operator came back. “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, copy that, I think. We thought you were a goner when we got the id on the ship that came through. Glad to see we were wrong. State your intensions.”

  “Gladiator five nine has some housework to do out here, after which I’ll be right home.”

  “Sydney station to Gladiator five nine, do you require assistance?”

  “Negative Sydney station, Gladiator five nine has it all under control.” I think, I added to myself.

  Ok, now to get this mess cleaned up. It took me a while to collect the two ships furthest away. I slid out the two grav sleds, and slowly moved each of the sleds next to a ship and turned on the gravity for that sled. Each ship was pulled into the sled, as was any debris nearby. Next came the last ship. Its sleds were out. I turned to bring one of my towed ships next to a sled, and cut the gravity. The ship slowly drifted over to the other sled, proving that gravity was on. I shifted again to bring the second sled near the other ship’s second sled, and repeated the transfer. I collected the third ship and returned to the fourth one. Being very careful to make sure it was attracted to the empty sled I finally had all four ships under tow. It certainly didn’t look pretty, but it seemed to be working.