Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates (19 page)

Magnus took herself off to her shuttle,
having apparently saved her goodbye with me to last.

When all but the Israeli shuttle had
launched, I nodded to Jane.

"Get us the fuck out of here!"

HUNTER ON THE WARPATH

"Sources inside Earth sector
government have revealed that Jon Hunter, the self-styled Duke and boy-Admiral,
has been holding meetings with sector and system representatives as he
progresses up the spine. Unconfirmed sources suggest he is urging all sectors
to prepare for war, and planetary evacuations."

"In a surprise turn of events, Media
leaders have admitted to refusing to release a statement made by Hunter weeks
before, given the message was deemed fanciful, uncorroborated, and likely to
cause mass panic."

I still didn’t understand this. Since when
has the media ever cared about things being fanciful, uncorroborated, or likely
to cause panic? It was their bread and butter. The more fanciful and panic
causing, the better they generally liked it.

"With the number of sectors and
governments now actively preparing defense plans and evacuation strategies,
Freedom of Information Commentators are now calling for the release of the
Hunter Memorandum, as it's now being called."

One guess who the unconfirmed source was. I
sincerely hoped he managed to kill himself long before I needed to have any
contact with him again. The mangled nature of that thought, didn’t escape me.
But it led to another. If need be, I might have to shoot the man, rather than
be put under his command for an Earth sector defense. I seriously doubted he
could mount a paper bag defense. Well, no-one could. There hadn't been a paper
bag in centuries, outside a museum. But for some reason, the silly statement
was still used. I forced myself to get a grip.

On the other side of Barnard's Star, on our
closest approach to their planet, the Israeli shuttle launched, and was left
behind.

We sent information packets to Kuwait,
Bahrain, Latvia, Estonia, and Victoria, as we passed through. Each of them was
in a similar situation to Israel.

In Deutschland, we picked up a German
shuttle at the jump point, and they stayed with us through Berlin, until just
before the jump point to Fourth Reich. We played them the whole circus so far.

They took us seriously. While not prepared
to defend anyone else's space, they did commit to defending their own, to
defend refugees fleeing in whichever direction they were going, and preparing
to move their entire sector population if they couldn’t hold their two spine
systems. If they still had forces which could fight after this time, they would
place themselves under my command, and fall back with the blocking force,
enabling other systems to flee ahead as well.

I felt compelled to ask why they would put
themselves under my command, and was bluntly told they bowed to nothing but
demonstrated competence, and none of their military leaders had more combat
experience than I did. They were also mindful that no-one in either Earth
sector, or any other sector, was going to trust them to lead, so they may as
well follow the only leader with proven experience.

Put that way, it wasn’t quite the ego stroke
it had started out being.

What it was though, was a start, finally.

The Germans of the Fourth Reich surprised
me by taking the same stance as their relatives. Except for putting their
forces under anyone else's command, where they assured me they would take
suggestions from me seriously, but wouldn’t take orders from anyone.

Never look a gift Nazi in the mouth. But
I’d take their ships if I needed them. And when the chips were down, a Nazi
following my suggestions was much more use to me than an Admiral Git working at
cross-purposes for nothing other than ego reasons.

Czech, Slovak, Croatia, Serbia, and Poland,
were repeats of other small systems, again with little or no space naval
capability. In a strict sense, they were part of the Earth sector, so would
normally call for sector forces to defend them. But realistically, they were
likely to be on their own. Serbia and Poland promised to pass the information
on to their neighbors.

In Athens, we picked up a Greek sub-sector
delegation. They were gone before we jumped out, promising to at least consider
their options, and discuss them with Earth sector.

We headed down the side of the V. Sparta,
Crete, Cyprus, and Malta. And up the other side of the V, Bulgaria, Romania,
and Cuba, who all received the package without comment.

Jamaica promised to pass the package on to
Dominica and Puerto Rico. Bermuda promised to on-send to Barbados and Trinidad,
the former to pass it on again up that sub-arm.

As we down jumped into Hawaii, I breathed a
sigh of relief we were back in 'our end' of the spine at last.

The Canadians came aboard.

I'd not dealt with Canadians before. And I
wasn’t expecting them to come in force. There were three shuttles. The first
had the diplomatic team, including a four star Admiral, and a one star General.
The second was a Marine unit. The third was their elite fighter squadron
pilots.

The diplomats and brass were taken through
the whole presentation, with the diplomats leaving before we were across the
system. The rest were assigned accommodation on Unassailable. The Marines and
pilots in the barracks, with the Admiral, General, Wing Commander and Squadron
Leader being assigned suites.

Jane had already crunched the anticipated
lists of who we expected from now on, and had accommodation assignments already
made. Names were on doors already, and Butler droids assigned. We'd not
expected pilots, but there were enough of the appropriate sized suites
unassigned to not be a hassle.

I'd deliberately chosen to house most of
those coming aboard to Unassailable, as it would give them the chance to talk
amongst themselves, without feeling like they were being observed. Of course, Jane
would be, but so unobtrusively that only the paranoid would notice.

Annabelle took over host duties for the
senior officers, allowing me to swan in and out as I pleased. Mostly it was
out, as I was spending a lot of time on the Bridge, especially for jump
transitions. It meant I wasn’t getting enough contiguous sleep. But far from
going all Grumpy Cat on people, as I had going the other way, the closer we got
to home, the more my spirits soared. I was still joining in group spas when
called, and Aline was doing a good job adding to my sleep deficiencies.

While I wasn’t spending as much time in
training as I once had, I was doing some. I was mentally and physically fit
again, working to keep it, but not training for the sake of it like the Marines
did.

But I still limped. Maybe I always would.

On the morning after the Canadians arrived,
Jane told me to get down to the ranges. There I found what looked like some
very unhealthy competition going on between my teams and the Canadian team,
most especially between BA and the Canadian Sergeant Major. It took me a while
to figure out what looked like outright hatred between them was in fact a
competitive friendship. I laughed my way back to the Bridge, where I wondered
what the pilots were doing. I should have known they'd all be on the simulator,
fighting each other. I laughed some more.

By the time we'd passed through Los
Angeles, and were half way across Vegas, the Canadian senior officers had
discussed the system in their space we now considered one of the six vulnerable
prophesy sites. They unofficially called it Victoria, in spite of there already
being a Victoria system in the Earth sector. It was inhabited by a number of
mining operations, and the four star started giving orders for the movement of
ships to the system.

If the worst happened and prophesy did in
fact appear, the forces there had to hold a long time in order to allow their
population to flee through Vancouver, only one jump away. If the shit hit the
fan anywhere else, they had time to move forces, but if they were the ones
facing prophesy first, they had no time to move ships anywhere. Their main
fleet was based in Vancouver, so it was only a short distance to send them.

We discussed the possibility of Hunter ships
joining their defense force. I promised to see what I could do, but I had three
such systems to put forces into now, and until my upgrade program was complete,
I wouldn’t be sure what I had to divide up. And who knew if I actually had
enough for one system, let alone the three, or a fourth.

We discussed the Americans as well. They
didn’t have to worry about an entry point, if my nightmare was correct. And
this was a worry of mine, that the nightmare wasn’t being correctly interpreted
at all. But it was a worry I kept to myself. We needed something to plan to. If
it turned out to be wrong, at least we had forces in place we could move.

Of all the sectors, the Americans were the
best armed. And they were in the process of modernizing, which was even better.
We discussed the ways me might influence them into sending a force to bolster
the Canadian defense. If the threat came through Dead Man's Chest, both fleets
would be able to move to block it at Hawaii in time to be useful. If the threat
came up the spine from lower down, they had plenty of time to move.

On the other hand, if the threat came
through Nexus, the Americans would need a blocking force to bolster the British
at London, and the SFSF at Miami, making three block points they needed to
cover to protect their own space. Better if the Miami force was in Cobol, where
they could help defend Sci-Fi space.

At the back of my mind was the problem of
what might happen if prophesy came through Nexus. Losing Nexus would cost the
entire Australian sector in one stroke. And if that was the case, it was likely
I'd die there. But for some reason, I didn’t think it would be Nexus. I
couldn't tell you why I felt that, I just did.

I also couldn’t shake the feeling prophesy
would kill me. In the course of a year, I'd gone from a scared kid in over his
head, to the owner of large sections of mainly worthless, but highly strategic
sections of space. I'd built a fighting force which rivaled even the American
fleet, if for now under matched, but which when fully upgraded could be
considered a threat to any and all sectors.

As such, I now carried the burden of
responsibility, which went with being the messenger. I was the one pushing the
same thing Midgard had been trying to do in their own warped way. At some point
I would have to put up or shut up, and it meant when the shit hit the fan, I
had to be in the thick of it. And being there, always carried the risk of dying
there. My recent dreams also didn’t bode well.

Ah well. A short but entertaining life for
me.

I could hear Kali chuckling in the
background. Not going there.

As we were approaching the Salt Lake jump
point, Jane pulled the nav map for Salt Lake out, for a better view close up.
Her mouth made the shape for the letter O, but she didn’t say it.

"Whatcha got?" I asked her.

There were three green dots on the far side
of the system, heading towards us. Nothing out of the ordinary though, as far
as I could see.

"Something odd."

She pointed to a grey dot near the jump
point. It wasn’t a ship, but it was moving.

"Definitely odd," I murmured.
"How are we picking it up?"

"Mass detection. Plus its mass moving
without any ID."

"Did you get that up and
running?"

"Abigail did most of the work. She had
it done before we left Treasure Chest. I sent it up the line as a code update,
so all the comnavsats in the entire arm should be able to detect mass on the
move now."

"Any movement in War?"

"Plenty. Unfortunately, that's one
system where a ship without an ID would be hard to detect. And it applies
everywhere. A ship without an ID showing could hide in any moving asteroid
field, and as long as it wasn’t travelling faster than everything around it, it
wouldn’t be detectable."

I nodded, as this seemed reasonable.

"So what do we have ahead of us?"

"Like as not, it’s a pirate, trying to
hide itself. The fact there are three PB's coming up behind it suggests they
were identified anyway, and the Americans are hunting them."

"Let's be friendly as we blow past,
and lob them some play toys."

"Confirmed."

Word passed around the ship fairly rapidly,
and the Bridge filled up well before the jump.

The ship turned out to be a Cruiser. We had
a few minutes to wait after jumping, but at my nod, Jane fired off a full
broadside of missiles.

A voice only channel opened.

"Don’t shoot! We surrender."

"Shit," I exclaimed. "Jane,
disable the missiles."

"Confirmed."

One after the other, the missiles impacted
the shields of the Cruiser, but didn’t explode. I sighed. Waste of missiles.
But then, who'd have thought a pirate would just surrender like that?

"Damnit!" I said suddenly.

"What?" asked Amanda.

"Now we have to stop."

"Oh," said Aleesha with a grin.

The Cruiser was already stopping, and I pointed
a finger at Jane, and drew it downwards. BigMother began to slow also.

The channel was still open.

"Identify yourself," I said. I
changed my mind suddenly. "No, don’t bother. Are you pirates or
what?"

"The Americans think we are. The
pirates thought we were."

"What do you think you are?"

"Mercenaries."

"Is that you Bonko?" asked Jack.

"O'Neill? Oh Lord, protect us from
avenging ghosts!"

"It's really me Bonko. Nothing dead
about any of us. We just got lost for a while."

"Hell Jack, after you vanished, times
got tough."

"I'm sure they did," I
interrupted. "But you can catch up at a later date. You will disable your
ship AI, and allow mine to take over your ship."

"No AI. No protection either. So go
for it."

I nodded to Jane, and she nodded back.

"Dock it to the front airlock."

I turned to Jack.

"I don’t care what the story is at
this particular moment. I want the lot of them in the Brig as fast as you can
get them there. You can sort out the story later. The fact they have Pocket
Battleships after them means the Americans want them for something, and until
we find out what, and if we need to hand them over, they stay in lock
down."

"Yes sir."

He and Sam rushed out. I looked at Amanda.
She and Aleesha rushed out after them, followed by BA and the rest of the team.
I looked at Jane.

"Can we dock the Cruiser the same as
we did the one we used for trojaning the pirate station?"

"Confirmed."

"Do so then."

I sat there fuming over the wasted minutes,
waiting for us to start moving again. It didn’t really take that long to
offload a small crew, shift the ship to a more secure dock, and get moving
again, but I was starting to worry about time ticking away.

We were barely back up to top speed when we
received a message from the lead PB. I threw the vid to a side screen. It was
Captain Johansson, of the Harrison Ford.

"Admiral, I see you stopped and picked
up our quarry. Care to let us know what's going on? The ship is suspected of
being a pirate, having been reported as running without a ship ID. If nothing
else, it's in violation of Guild law, requiring all ships to operate with a
functional ship ID. Please let me know your intentions. Johansson out."

"Jane, do we know anything about the
ship?"

"The ship ID is there, but it's not
broadcasting as it should be. However, it was accessible to me as soon as I
took over the ship. It is registered with the Mercenary Guild, but it's tagged
as having gone rogue, possibly even pirate."

"So at best, dark merc. At worst,
pirate pretending to be dark merc in order to avoid worse consequences."

"Indeed. I'll see what the computer
has to say for itself."

"Do that."

I opened a vid.

"Captain, nice to see you again. The
Cruiser surrendered to us after we opened fire, but in time to disable our
missiles. They claim the pirates thought they were pirates, but they are in
fact mercenaries. The ship ID confirms they are Guild mercenaries, but they are
tagged as possibly gone dark, or being pirate. At the moment, I don’t have
enough information to judge one way or another. For now, I have the crew in
custody. I'll let you know as soon as I know anything more. In the meantime,
I'm on a speed run to Nexus, and will be meeting up with your bosses in
Washington. I'm claiming the ship, and can drop the crew off in Washington if
you want them. Hunter out."

The reply came back quickly, saying he'd
ask for orders up his chain of command and see what came back. In the meantime,
he was standing down, and returning to his patrol.

I waited a good while for Jack to come
back, and moved into my Ready Room to wait more comfortably.

Jack and Sam finally entered and sat down,
with big grins on their faces.

"Well it's definitely Bonko and his
crew," Jack announced.

"What the hell is a Bonko?"

"That’s his name. As far as anyone
knows, it's the only name anyone has ever known him by."

I gave him a steady gaze, waiting for more.

"Bonko's been a merc all his life,
born and raised on a Dropship. He had a Destroyer last time I saw him, but that
was a dozen years ago now, normal time wise. No idea how he came to have a
Cruiser, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find a Destroyer docked inside it, a
Frigate inside that, and a Corvette inside the Frigate."