Hunter Legacy 5 Hail the Hero
Read Hunter Legacy 5 Hail the Hero Online
Authors: Timothy Ellis
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Exploration, #Military, #Space Fleet, #Space Marine, #Space Opera, #Teen & Young Adult, #Metaphysical & Visionary, #Space Exploration
Hail the Hero,
By Timothy Ellis
The Hunter Legacy, Book Five
Copyright (c) 2015 by Timothy Ellis
Cover Photo from the Egosoft Game, X3 Albion Prelude.
This book is a work of fiction. The names,
characters, places and events are fictional and have no relationship to any
real person, place or event. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is
purely co-incidental.
The author has taken the liberty of using
some recognizable names in a historical context or projected into the future as
if such entities survive into the timeframe of this work of fiction. Such
references are intended solely as a tribute to the entity so used and all such
usage has an intended deep respect. The author has also deliberately chosen
names for characters in tribute to the science fiction genre in all forms of
media. Some may be obvious, others won’t be. There is no implied connection,
other than what the reader may make for themselves.
The author is Australian and the main
characters in this book are of Australian origin. In Australia, we colour
things slightly differently, so you may notice some of the spelling is
different. Please do not be alarmed. If you do suffer any discomfort, please
take it out on the nearest pirate.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the
written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation
embodied in critical articles or reviews.
“Oh hell no!” I exclaimed.
I felt disjointed for a brief moment, as if
time had just jumped back a few seconds, and I’d heard myself exclaim the same
thing twice. Or maybe it was just a mental echo brought about by a shock
discovery.
“Get Yorktown moving NOW!” I
yelled. People around me winced, as team coms amplified my voice in their
heads. “They’re about to jump on top of you. Cruisers, Corvettes, and
Excalibur pilots, stand your ships on their nose and push Yorktown down! For
divine’s sake, do it NOW.”
“Jon, what’s going on?” asked
Vonda.
“The Midgard fleet is about to jump
into Miami, right on top of the American ships. And what’s worse, they have two
giant battering rams going first, presumably to make a path through the debris
field that isn’t there anymore.”
I could hear Yorktown’s Captain bellowing
orders in the background, overlaid by those of Greer and Miriam, as they
exhorted their pilots to do as I’d told them.
Lined up behind the two strange looking
ships, were four walls of six Missile Cruisers, with Talon Squadrons in
between. Between us and them, was another twenty four Cruisers, deployed in a
defensive wall.
“Four walls of six Missile Cruisers
about to jump,” I said for the American’s benefit, who couldn’t see what I
saw. “American defensive ships, get an immediate target lock on the jump
point.”
Barely ten seconds later, the first two
dull red dots jumped. On the scanner screen, the dull red dots merged with the green
dots.
Two yellow dots appeared for just a second.
The scanner feed from the other side vanished.
“What just happened?” I demanded.
“Feed lost at the source,” said
Jane. “Coms lost as well.”
I sat there, stunned, for several seconds.
“Perhaps today
is
a good day to
die,” I sub-vocalized to myself.
“Shut up Jon!” said Amanda,
sub-vocalizing as well.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“Ka-Plaa,” sub-vocalized Eric.
“Success,” I translated, still
sub-vocalizing. “Indeed.”
His pronunciation needed work, but it had
been a great response to my all too public musing. Only those on team coms
would have heard what we said.
“All ships,” I said normally, “advance.
Prepare to fire. Jane, mark out positions to stop, for all ships, in range of
all guns. Allow the Battleships room to turn enough to bring all guns to bear.
Launch the Hives.”
“Confirmed.”
Time stopped for me. What was it with me
and time?
There is no time. Focus.
The battlefield was laid out to my sight
below me.
My fleet was arrayed in a wall formation.
BigMother was in the middle. Warspite was on my left, Repulse on my right. John
Wayne was above, with the Guardians on both sides. A line of Corvettes was
above them. A line of Cruisers and Destroyers was below BigMother.
The enemy fleet was divided into two
halves.
The closest half was a defensive formation
between us and the jump point. A wall of Missile Cruisers was six wide and four
high, sideways on to us. Seven hundred and twenty Talon medium fighters were behind
them, positioned to fire through the gaps, and around the sides of the wall.
The other half of the enemy fleet was lined
up in four rows of six, behind each other, so six Missile Cruisers could jump
into the Miami system together. Between each group of Cruisers, were fifteen
squadrons of twelve Talon fighters, with the last group of Talons in the tail
position.
I looked down on the battlefield, and a
fierce cold touched my heart.
Time sped back to normal, as did my vision.
My fleet shot forward, obeying my order to
advance, raggedly at first, but coming back into formation quickly.
The first rank of six enemy Missile
Cruisers jumped out.
“Fire missiles as soon as they come in
range. Fire Hive torpedoes as soon as you can get a target for them.”
“Confirmed.”
Midgard fired first, as if they’d been
waiting for us to arrive. Four thousand, eight hundred capital ship missiles
headed towards us. Talons streamed through the jump point, going the other way,
to attack the American fleet on the other side.
Fifty Mosquito launchers belched in
response.
Our missile launchers fired a second later.
The second rank of Missile Cruisers jumped.
A wall of Talon missiles headed towards us.
The Hives fired off salvos of torpedoes. It
looked like they would arrive at much the same time as our missiles.
I sat there watching. There was nothing
else I could do now. The Bridge around me was silent, as everyone’s attention
was glued to the scanner. I zoomed it in so only the space between us and the
jump point was visible.
“Get the salvage droid out of there Jane.”
“Confirmed.”
It had played its part, sneaking us a look
at the enemy position without revealing our presence. There was no point in it,
or the comnavsat it carried, being destroyed in the fighting.
Any sort of plan was out the window.
Midgard had surprised me this time, and given us no time to adapt. All we could
do was slug it out.
Missiles met Mosquitos, and space in front
of us lit up.
The third rank of Missile Cruisers jumped.
Our missile launchers fired a second time,
this time aimed at the remaining wall of Missile Cruisers, still waiting to
jump. A cloud of Talons were in front of them.
Twenty four Missile Cruisers exploded in
the space of three seconds.
Point Defenses opened up at the approaching
anti-fighter missiles.
Several missiles impacted on BigMother’s
shields, and I checked to see what was happening, fleet wide. The Corvettes
were having the hardest time, but most other ships were holding their own.
“Corvettes, duck behind a bigger ship,
before you lose too much shielding.”
I watched them all fall out of position,
and move into protected spaces. Their shields began to improve.
The last six Missile Cruisers jumped out.
“Shit!” I said, as I realized
what was about to happen next.
“What?” asked Alison.
“Our last salvos of missiles are going
to jump through into Miami.”
“Oh.”
“No-one ask how bad that is please. I
don’t know.”
“Duh!” said Amanda and Aleesha
together.
The last salvos of missiles vanished into
the jump point as expected.
The next wall of incoming Talon missiles
launched at us. The Mosquito launchers belched again.
“All ships, launch FF’s.”
The Talon cloud surged towards us, now they
weren’t trying to protect their capital ships. Seven hundred and twenty
fighters. They started winking out almost immediately.
The fleet kept up the missile launches.
The cloud surrounded us. Point Defense
turrets sought out missiles, Corvette and Destroyer guns sought out Talons, and
they continued to wink out.
“BigMother pilots, launch. Corvettes
and fighters, break and attack.”
“About bloody time,” said a
British voice.
Gunbus’, Camels, Excalibur’s, and a Centurion
launched, and joined with the other Corvettes in dogfighting Talons.
“Sir?” asked Lacey, who was in the
Assault Frigate General Custer.
“Go.”
Custer dropped from underneath BigMother,
and dived into the middle of the cloud. Normally suicidal for a Frigate, this
one could dogfight with the best of them. It was designed for me, and whatever
I flew, handled like a fighter. Even BigMother.
Every fiber of my being wanted to dive BigMother
in after Custer. I resisted. I found myself checking what guns I could link to
my joystick, and discovered BigMother had the same gun and front launcher setup
as Gunbus did, so technically I could dogfight her the same way. The mind
boggled though, and I resisted even more strongly. BigMother was longer than a
Cruiser, but shorter than a Battleship. Dogfighting in the middle of a fleet
was out of the question. All the same, my fingers itched.
The number of Talons dropped to below one
hundred, and they peeled away from the fleet, trying to escape back towards
Midgard.
“Pursue.”
Our smaller ships went after them, while
the larger ones continued launching missiles.
Fifty Talons. Twenty nine. Thirteen. None.
I breathed a sigh of relief, and drained
the remaining water in my bottle. I couldn’t recall actually drinking from it,
but obviously I had. Jeeves replaced it with another one.
“All ships. Crews can refresh
themselves, but remain on high alert. We may have to do this again in Miami as
soon as we can jump in. BigMother team, RTB. Fleet coms are now ended for
now.”
Jane caught my eye, and I nodded to her.
Fleet and Team coms shut off.
The whole battle had lasted just under
fifteen minutes. The debris field was huge. Talon wrecks were all around us.
“Jane, send out the salvage droids.
Haul the salvageable Talons into the Guardian’s cargo holds. If they fill,
create a parking area. Clear the debris from around us into a mountain well away
from us, and then I want the jump corridor cleared as rapidly as possible.”
“Confirmed.”
“Is it over?” asked Amy.
“Yes, at least until we can jump a
comnavsat into Miami, and find out what happened there.”
“Admiral,” said Vonda. “Can
you explain what happened here?”
I sighed.
“We arrived just as Midgard were
jumping into Miami. My guess is, they planned to attack from both jump points
at the same time, using what they thought were overwhelming numbers, and are
probably unaware we took the other jump point. The first ships to jump out
looked like huge walls attached to the front of two Cruisers. They had
obviously guessed a few days ago their fleets were not getting through the
debris field on the other side, or maybe a Talon survived the jump to jump back
and tell them. They devised a way of pushing through it, to clear the down jump
lane, for their fleet to follow. The problem was, Yorktown, whatever Pocket
Battleships they had, the Gunbus squadron, and the Excalibur wing, were all
waiting to jump through to here.”
“So what happened?” asked Amanda.
“I don’t know. They had maybe thirty
seconds warning to move Yorktown out of the way. Immediately after the two
battering ram ships jumped, two missiles were fired, and we lost all contact. I
don’t know why.”
“Could have been nukes,” said
Alana. Everyone looked at her. She was the demolition specialist. “The EMP
from an explosion that close would have fried the comnavsat and its salvage
droid. Might even have taken out ship ID’s. Ships not caught in the initial
blast should have been okay otherwise.”
Good explanation for the troops, but it
didn’t explain the loss of coms, which had been going AI to AI, through Jane,
not the comnavsat. And I wasn’t about to tell them.
“We can only hope,” said
Annabelle.
“Everyone take some downtime while you
can,” I said. “I’m going to email Miami, and hope we get a response.
It’s going to be at least an hour, likely more, before we can safely approach
the jump point. I’ll be in my Ready Room if anyone needs me.”
I jumped up, groaned, stretched, and limped
in, sinking into a lounge chair. Angel followed me, and sat on my lap purring.
Vonda followed as well. Jane closed the door behind me. I started a vid.
“Marshall, Admirals, Generals. The
Midgard side of the Miami jump point is ours. We arrived almost to the moment
when Midgard started to jump a forty eight Missile Cruiser force through the
jump point. The first two ships through were like battering rams, as if they
expected to have to hammer their way through a debris field to make a passage
for their Cruisers and fighters. Seconds after the jump, there were two
missiles fired, and we immediately lost both nav data and coms with Miami. The
first is explainable if the missiles were nukes, but the coms loss is a
mystery, since they were going AI to AI. I’m trying not to think the
worst.”
“We know Yorktown was right at the
jump point, and only had less than thirty seconds to move clear. For now, I’m
hoping they did, and their offensive force remained intact to deal with the
twenty four Missile Cruisers, and sixty squadrons of Talons that followed. The
other half of the force engaged us, and was handled without any major issues,
and no casualties. Once again, the Mosquito missile system proved to be the
decisive factor in handling the barrages.”
“Marshall, I don’t know how the
American fleet faired. If you receive no contact from Admiral’s Jedburgh or
Hallington in Miami, please send this vid on to whoever is the appropriate
authority for urgent action. I would assume there’s at least one Rear Admiral
still left there on the other Carrier, but I don’t have contact details for
that person. Have someone contact me with a sitrep. I sincerely hope this won’t
be necessary.”