Hunter Legacy 5 Hail the Hero (14 page)

Around two the next morning, I woke in a
lot of pain, and called Jeeves for a shot. Miriam was asleep beside me, and
Angel was curled next to my neck as usual.

Jeeves came, shot me, and left.

I lay there feeling bruised in both person
and spirit. While the girls had cheered me up the night before, and our love
making had been interestingly experimental to keep me from accidental extreme
pain, my overall mood was down.

I had a habit of rushing around without due
caution. Each time I did, the damage I took to my body was worse. I needed to
start using some healthy paranoia to stay safe. I needed to work on making
myself feel better as well. I needed to keep a positive mental attitude, but
that was hard to do when you ached constantly. I needed… I sighed.

“Sitrep Jane,” I said quietly.

“The jump into London system was
uneventful,” she said through my PC. “We’re two hours out.”

“Fifteen minutes out, contact Repulse
and have them move away. Then contact Guam and release the tow. Once Guam is on
her way, I want the four Guardians docked as we planned. To anyone watching us
enter orbit, we should look like one big ugly ship.”

“Confirmed.”

“Dock us if they’ll allow it, but keep
us buttoned up until someone requests to leave. Once the airlock opens, I want
all the security droids posing as human, and placed to cover the entire dock
area out to the longest gunshot possible.”

“Confirmed.”

I lay there wondering what could possibly
go wrong here. When I ran out of possibilities, I fell asleep.

I dreamed of purple smoke, with
unidentifiable shapes moving through it.

I woke again around six fifteen, and called
Jeeves in again. Miriam stirred next to me. Angel stood, stretched, and leapt
off the bed, presumably looking for breakfast.

Miriam grinned at me, and I had to stop her
from rekindling the activity of the night before. She pouted at me, but I
didn’t share her mood.

All I remembered of my dreams was purple
smoke, and it was becoming a red flag to avoid at my peril.

There were only two things I wanted to
know. How was I going to screw up next? And what shit was the cosmos about to
dump on me now?

“It’s not you,” I said to Miriam.
“I’m sore, tired, and wondering what else is about to go wrong around
me.”

She hugged me gently, and moved out of my
way so I could get myself up. She followed me into the shower. The grav pad in
the shower took her a moment to get used to. I was carefully washed, and was
able to wash her upper parts. Back on my scooter, she carefully dried me off,
and pulled on my briefs and socks. I shifted into ‘slinky red’, and she into fatigues.

I had no appetite for food, so I headed up
to the Bridge, while Miriam sought out the Dining Room. I could see immediately
we were docked at a station.

“Sitrep,” I said to Jane, when I
was seated in my chair.

“We docked at four thirty, and are still
buttoned up. You have emails to look at.”

I pulled out my pad, and settled in a
lounge chair in my Ready Room.

Jane had highlighted one from the British
sector government. It contained a schedule for the next three days, beginning
with an informal cocktail party at two today, and a formal dinner at seven
tonight. Tomorrow there was an awards ceremony at two, with my attendance being
expected. As the commander of the British troops, I was required to stand in
the official party for the medal presentations. In the evening was another
formal dinner. The following day was marked as ‘be free for Her Majesties’
pleasure’.

I asked Jane who else had received official
emails, and apparently everyone had received their own.

I then asked her what the time difference
was, expecting we were going to be very out of sync. I was surprised to find
that the city of London was on Earth normal time, the same as every station and
ship was. The planet itself had a rotation so close to Earth’s, making the
normal leap year adjustment keep the sync aligned. I wondered what the odds
were of it happening, and if the British sector had deliberately begun here
because of it. No time for history lessons though.

The next email was from Marshall
Bigglesworth, who had asked senior officers to a meeting at nine.

There was an invoice from the local ‘tool
man’, which I looked down before paying. I could understand him wanting payment
before delivery, as it was a sizable total. It completed what I’d sent
Annabelle to get on Dallas. All the team had their own combat suit except for
Annabelle, including George and Alison. We now had another forty one combat
suits, plus twelve specials for Jane to use, bringing us to a total of sixty
three, including mine. The power backpack for the suits was also listed, and I
noticed Jane had ordered twelve instead of one. There was also Pulse Rifles and
Meson Blasters. The last items had to do with components for building an
Armoury.

I paid it, and asked for immediate
delivery. I had a response straight away, indicating a half an hour before
arrival. I pinged Annabelle she was getting a delivery in half an hour, and
would need the team down at the main airlock to receive it. Jane began
organizing cargo droids.

I told her to move all the security droids
out into a circle at maximum gun range as soon as the airlock opened. The
combat droids were to be formed up in a V formation around the inside of the
airlock, with just enough of a gap at the top of the V to allow entry of the
delivery, and movement in and out. I also instructed her to take control of her
twelve combat suits, and have them stationed at the airlock all the time it was
open. This was to be a permanent arrangement for whenever we were docked.

A screen popped up showing her existing
suit running down the Cargo Bay towards the still closed airlock.

I kept on with emails, until one stopped
me. There was a bounty payment in from Earth sector on the four assassins who’d
almost killed me.

I stopped dead.

I hadn’t thought this before. But they had almost
killed me this time. Only the intervention of a higher power had kept me alive.
And not necessarily for me either, but because I was part of whatever they were
up to. If it hadn’t been for Kali, they would have killed me, in spite of the
extra protection I was wearing.

My mood darkened.

I continued on until I was interrupted by
the girls trooping in. Miriam smiled at me, but Alison, Amanda, and Aleesha
looked serious.

I put my pad down and sighed. They settled
on chairs around me.

Alison looked me in the eyes.

“Okay Jon, spill it. What really
happened to you?”

I sighed again.

Amanda’s hand went to her gun.

“I told you what happened,” I
said, before she could whack me on the foot again.

“Who were you talking too,” asked
Amanda.

“Them,” I replied, indicating the
two figures on the conference table.

Actually now I looked at them, I could see
they had moved back to the top end of the table on either side of the damage,
where I’d found them originally.

“And they are?” asked Aleesha.

“Kali and Ganesha.”

Alison’s eyes went wide, but the others
didn’t seem to know the names.

“Who are they when they’re at
home?” asked Miriam.

“Indian Deities. Kali the Destroyer,
and Lord Ganesha. Two you don’t mess with.”

“Gods?” asked Amanda.

“Same order of being, but I don’t use
the ‘g’ word.”

“They can’t be nice beings to put us
through what they did,” said Aleesha.

I shrugged.

“We each went through what we needed
to, even if we don’t understand why we needed to experience it.”

“Pig’s arse”, said Amanda
forcefully. “None of us needed to think you were dead for fifteen long
minutes. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

The others nodded.

“I don’t know why they did it that
way. They have the power to simply interrupt time. But they let time go on
while we talked. I was brought up to believe that such things always have a
reason.” I looked at Amanda. “Maybe it was as simple as convincing
you keeping your distance was a mistake.”

“Bullshit,” she said.

“Maybe so, but, how about this. We
share dreams. Who do you think is most likely making that happen?”

“Oh.”

“Yes. So maybe they want us close
together to make the shared dreaming more reliable or something.”

Amanda looked troubled.

“Sis,” said Aleesha, “he
could be right. We share this link for some reason.”

“Why did I have to go through
it?” asked Alison.

“You got too close to him,” said
Miriam.

Alison looked shocked, and then guilty. I
had wondered about that. She’d tried to initiate sex a lot more than I would
have expected. Maybe sleeping together before the Avon battle had been a
mistake, and after, she let herself feel more than was there.

“Why me?” Miriam added.

“You didn’t go through what they
did,” I said.

She looked about ready to explode at me.

“You weren’t there,” I went on
quickly. “For you, it was second hand until you got to me, and you arrived
after I revived.”

She subsided. None of them looked happy.

Alison and the twins went blank. Pings, I
thought.

“Annabelle wants us at the
airlock,” said Amanda. “Do you know why?”

“Yes,” I said, and grinned at
her.

“And?” said Aleesha.

“Go and find out,” I said to
them.

The three of them left without a word.

Miriam sat there looking at me for a full
minute. She rose, pecked me on the mouth, and left as well.

I went back to emails, after pulling up a
screen of the airlock opening, so I could watch the combat suits arriving.

It wasn’t long before I knew I’d made BA’s
day.

Just before nine, I materialized outside
the meeting room. I say materialized, because I’d followed Darius, Chet, and
Annabelle, in chameleon mode. They’d asked where I was, and been told I was
already off the ship. This was technically true, since I was at the bottom of
the ramp waiting for them.

Once we arrived, I shifted back to ‘swanky
red’, since they were in Dress uniforms. I startled them all, but they quickly
laughed it off. We went in.

There were five people already there.

Admiral Bentley I knew. Beside her was
Marshall Bigglesworth. The other three were General Patton, General Price, and
to my surprise, General Harriman.

He laughed at my surprised expression, came
over, and shook hands.

“You didn’t expect to see me, did
you?” he said.

“No Walter, I didn’t. Does this mean
my Liner is here somewhere?”

“Yes Jon, it does. It’s being moved to
dock with your Carrier as we speak. I received the invitation to come a lot
earlier than everyone else to enable me to get here in time. As it happens,
your Liner is a lot faster than anyone knew, so I’ve actually had a mini
vacation waiting for you all.”

Annabelle and I both grinned. He and
Annabelle hugged.

The other Generals came over and shook
hands with me, and lastly, Marshal Bigglesworth shook my hand.

He motioned for us all to take seats. The
room appeared to be some sort of VIP lounge.

The others sat, and watched me lower myself
into a seat. A butler droid slid a pouffe under my leg as soon as I was down.

Another put drinks beside each of us.

“This is an informal gathering,”
said Bigglesworth, “before we get caught up in the official events. Since
we’ve all been in contact during this crisis, I thought it a good idea to
actually meet, and see if we can make this a regular event. For too long I
think, the sectors have been too insular. As we found out the hard way, our
sectors are vulnerable if we stand alone.” Everyone nodded to this.
“We may not be able to convince our governments of this, but among
ourselves, we can keep up a dialog, so in future if something like this happens
again, we know where we stand, and who to contact for help if we need it.”

“I agree with that assessment,” said
Price. “Sci-Fi sector was clearly unprepared for what happened to us, and
without help, we would have fallen to the aggressors. We were lucky Admiral
Hunter decided to help, and the British fleet arrived in time to bolster Avon’s
defenses. Without either, we were lost.”

“I agree also,” said Patton.
“The situation in Miami caught us completely unprepared, and demonstrated
the sad truth that our mainstay ships are old, and out of date, just like some
of our more junior flag officers have been trying to tell us for years.”
Chet went red. “I’m pushing for modernization, but I agree we need to have
closer ties, in the event something like this happens again.”

“I also agree,” said Harriman.
“Without Admiral Hunter’s forces, Midgard would have swept through our
sector in a matter of weeks. Unfortunately, we suffered from a government
unwilling to spend on defensive purposes, and when pirates took advantage of
our weakness, we were reduced to relying on sheer luck to save us. Now we have
a government obsessed with fear of threats, and while they have been spending
to restore our forces, we still don’t have a force that could have protected us
from Midgard’s. We’ll be negotiating with Admiral Hunter for the contracting of
his forces should the need arise. But they are his forces, not the Australian
sectors. We need allies. I don’t for one second believe the pirate threat has
been diminished significantly. It’s simply been moved for now, as it
periodically moves when one area makes an effort to remove them. They could
decide to hit any one of us now we’ve been revealed to be vulnerable. We must
stand together, even if our governments won’t make it official.”

Jedburgh cleared his throat, and all eyes
turned to him.

“Chet and I are here because junior
officers believed in a man who gave insane orders, and followed those orders,
bullying their people into following those orders. The orders were only insane
to the likes of us, who haven’t fought a major war in our lifetimes. Who
haven’t thought beyond the established protocols for so long, we’ve forgotten
the cardinal rule of war. Adapt or die. We built ships for a war against other
sectors, while the real enemy is pirates and radical groups. We built and trained
for a slug war between capital ships using laser weapons, and ignored what the
little systems had developed. We learned to our cost that if you specialize too
much, the enemy will throw at you what you can least respond to. We need to
completely rethink war in our time, and start to restructure our fleets to cover
all the bases.”

They all turned to me.

“Age, wisdom, and beauty, before young
wrecks,” I said.

They all laughed.

Bigglesworth turned to Bentley.

“I’m not sure why I’m here,” she
said.

“You played a pivotal role in the
conflict,” said Price. “You all did. For too long the senior flag
officers of all our sectors have been ignoring the two and one stars who have
been telling us what reality is, instead of what we thought it was. The last
major war was over a hundred years ago, and we’ve grown complacent. We fight
brushfires here and there, but this is the first time for way too long that we
faced a major threat. We came up wanting, and it cost too many lives all round.
You’re here,” he made eye contact with Susan, Annabelle and Chet,
“because the burden fell on you, and you carried it. So we want your
thoughts.”

“I’m just a battlewagon driver,”
said Susan.

Bigglesworth burst out laughing.

“There’s nothing ‘just’ about you
Susan. Admiral Hunter delegated a lot of responsibility to you, for tactical
fleet movements. You showed you do more than drive a ship. Why do you think
I’ve been trying to promote you? We need your innate ability. For now, I’m
content to leave you where you are. But you will be called on to use that
second stripe of yours from now on. So talk to us.”

“Since you asked,” she said,
“I think the situation is worse than you all think. None of our sectors
have the experienced officers needed to mount any form of major campaign. We
triumphed this time because we fluked pooling our talent, and for once,
practical reality biting our bollocks, dictated the sectors co-operate. Sheer
luck, or maybe it was divine intervention, put the right people in the right
places, at the right time. But it could just as easily have been a total
disaster. I think we need to co-operate more openly in the future, to the
extent that our senior officers train together. If something like this happens
again, we need to be able to form a unified command, with the best officers
across the sectors heading up each branch of the command. To do that, we need
to know who they are, where they are, and have a means of getting them together
rapidly. We also need to ensure that the resources necessary are not only
available, but they also can get where they’re needed rapidly.”

She ran out of breathe. Hallington
continued.

“We have the people,” he began.
“But some of our brightest are still junior officers. Two of my Commanders
recognized what we needed after spending one day with then Captain Hunter.
Being Lieutenant Commanders at the time, we didn’t listen to them enough. The
cost was two Fleet Carriers out of commission, too many Cruisers destroyed, and
too many lives lost. None of our Captains have any real combat experience. None
of our ships, save the new ones, are capable of doing what their missions are.
Between us, we lost two Admirals, and a lot of Captains. The Commanders
survived because they have more battle skills than our more senior officers
do.” He indicated me. “The only thing any of us did right in this
whole mess, was to listen to this man. Those who ignored him, died. We need to
bring forward the best of our people to replace the dead wood driving our ships
at the moment, and then train them all to work together.”

He stopped. There was silence.

All eyes turned to Annabelle.

For the first time I’d ever seen her, I
thought she looked scared. I saw her get a grip. As junior officer in this
company, and only recently promoted to flag rank, talking to this group as an
equal was obviously daunting to her, where nothing else was.

“I left the Australian Militia,”
she said, “precisely for the reasons outlined here today. I joined Jon
when I saw he had the makings of a first class General. Even when he’s reacting
to something unexpected, he thinks ten moves into the future. He plans when
others are partying. I’ve watched him wrestle with things so far outside his
training and understanding, and every single time he came to the right
conclusion, and made the right decision. With the exception of General
Harriman, Australian sector has no talented officers. Those of us who are, were
effectively bullied out. A lot of it was politically based, by a government who
didn’t want to hear about threats and inadequacies. Our current government,
while trumpeting the threats, are actually worse than the previous one as far
as addressing the problems are concerned. I’ve travelled extensively in the
last few years. Much of all our best talent are now Mercs, or as said, junior
officers. I’ve gathered the best of the ex-Australian infantry teams to me, and
I regretted not centralizing us, since we needed them all with us over the last
week. We let them go, and we paid the price for doing so. Not just my teams,
now spread along the spine, but all the real talent from all our sectors. We
need to repair the damage.”

She ran out of steam, and they all turned
to me.

“This was a wakeup call,” I said.
“Something big is coming. You were all tested. You know what the problems
are. The governments will never do what we need them to. It’s up to you to deal
with the issues, repair the damage of a century, and prepare your sectors for
the real threat.”

“Ragnarok?” suggested Jedburgh.

“Two isolationist cultures, mine and
Midgard’s, have prophesy of the end of the world. Both seem to be saying it’s
very close now. One of them sought to prevent it in a way most would consider
to be the madness response. The other sent me to deal with them.”

“Sent you?” asked Price.

“Why else would I be here? At home I’m
sixteen years old, and not considered an adult yet. But I was brought up with
prophesy from the moment I had my first nightmare about the coming darkness,
which is the first sign. I was encouraged to build computers and simulators
when other kids were playing ball. They didn’t dissuaded me from playing combat
games, and studying military history. I wasn’t aware of it, but now it seems
fairly obvious. I was identified by prophesy at an early age, and trained
without obviously being trained. I can’t say for sure, but it feels like I was
sent. As if those who know prophesy, knew I had to be out here now. Otherwise,
why was I even allowed to leave home two full years early? It never occurred to
me at the time, because I was so happy to get my first trip out system. It’s
only been two months, but I feel like I’ve aged ten years.”

“Not aged,” said Annabelle,
“but you perform at the level of a twenty year veteran.”

The others agreed with her assessment.

“So what are you saying?” asked
Bigglesworth.

“I’m saying, this was a warning. When
the real threat comes, we have to be ready, or nothing will survive. If we
don’t combine our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses, we will be
lost.”

“Any idea what the threat is?”
asked Hallington.

“The Keepers call it the darkness. My
nightmares begin with a single black dot, which becomes millions, and blots out
the stars. Who or what it is, I’ve no idea. I’m not sure if the Keepers even
know.”

“Timing?” asked Harriman.

“Not this year, but I don’t feel like
it’s more than ten. I may know more in ten months’ time.”

“Why ten months?” asked Bentley.

“Outback has an isolationist policy,
which is relaxed for only five days each Earth year. I’m here because I was in
hospital when that five day window last expired. I have to wait another ten
months to go home, before I can confront the Keepers about prophesy.”

“Wont they communicate before
then?” asked Price.

“No. All coms equipment is turned off.
Any attempt to land on the planet is met with force. We take our isolation
seriously.”

“I want to be there when you go
home,” said Harriman.

The four stars looked at each other for a
moment.

“Jon,” said Jedburgh, “Each
sector will be sending a representative with you, unless you object.”

“I won’t object, but the Keepers
aren’t going to talk too just anyone. Or even let them listen. Whoever goes
will need to be trustworthy and discreet. And even that may not be enough.
Depending on how much they know, anyone who hears the full prophesy may need to
be able to cope with some big shock, and be capable of knowing how much to tell
others. We may find out, but be sworn to silence. The Keepers are a downright
secretive bunch.”