Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates (4 page)

Cams started popping up as we came within
team coms range of the station.

Jane threw station schematics onto a side
screen. Team six seemed to be advancing on the center of the station without
any real resistance. Team one was fighting a pitched battle near the computer
room.

I looked at it for a moment, confused at
the priorities being shown.

"Jane? What's going on with team
one?"

"It looks like the entire defensive
force of the station is concentrated outside the computer room."

"That AI is protecting itself you
think?"

"Seems to be. Odd for a mid-range
version."

"Time to change tactics then.
BA?"

"Boss?"

"Get Jane inside the computer room.
Take the scenic route if you have to."

"Gotchya."

A flurry of commands followed. The twins
and half the team stayed engaged with the defenders, while BA, half Jane's
combat suits, and Aline's squad, turned, and together, punched a hole in the
nearest wall. BA dived through first, and the rest followed. Inside the next
room, they did the same thing. Three rooms later, and they broke through into
the Computer Room. I watched one of Jane's combat suits go up to a data port,
and plug in.

Jane froze.

All of her froze, everywhere. Including
here on BigMother.

"Jane?" I yelled at her.

She didn’t move, didn’t speak. She didn’t
appear to be seeing anything, or doing anything.

The other AI had to be fighting her.

The fact it hadn't taken seconds was a
problem.

And I suddenly realized we had an even bigger
problem. She still had control of the ship, and we were pointed at the station.

"Shit!"

Angel leapt off the console and ran out.

"What's wrong Jon?" asked
Annabelle.

"The station must have a top of the
range AI, and it and Jane are now locked in a battle of wills for control of
everything."

I tried the controls on my chair, and
nothing worked.

"Jon!" yelled Dick, a horrified
expression on his face.

The station was directly ahead of us, and
we were still at our normal cruising speed. And I didn’t have control. I did
have minutes though, if I could use them correctly.

"Everyone launch, NOW!" I
screamed into ship coms.

I didn’t wait to see if they did or not. I
jumped up and crossed to Jane. She was rigid, and not connected to the ship
physically. Which meant the battle was going on across all forms of
communications.

"Everyone out of here," I yelled.

"Jon?" started Annabelle.

"Out. Move. If Jane loses, her avatar
will kill us."

The few left on the Bridge hurried out, and
I slammed the door behind us. It would provide about as much slow down to Jane
as a sheet of tissue paper, but it also stopped her seeing us for right now. As
if that mattered. But I was thinking on my feet, and slamming the door was a
good emotional release.

"Annabelle, do you still have a combat
suit on board?"

"Yes, on Deck Zero. But I don’t use
one very often."

"Go get it. If Jane comes out that
door, stop her any way you can."

"Jon?" She was horrified.

"No choice. Go."

I pushed her away, and then ran for the
access shaft. On the way down, I changed my stunners to lasers. I threw myself
off, and ran as fast as I could to the main communications nexus.

I had no idea where the on-off switch was,
so I drew both Gatling guns and raked the entire room until all the lights were
gone.

It may or may not have solved anything, but
I was hoping if we had no communications, then Jane here on the ship was now
fighting for control only of her own bodies here, with no outside help for the
intruder.

I ran for the CCC.

Once inside, I jumped into my seat, and
brought up the controls.

Yes! I had control.

But it was too late.

I desperately pulled the speed off us,
pulling us up and left, as I yelled "Brace for impact!" into ship
coms, forgetting I’d just destroyed them.

BigMother slammed into the station's shields,
with Unassailable taking the brunt of the impact. We may as well have slammed
into the station itself, as the whole ship shuddered down its length. Both
shields died, but my evasions at least stopped us hitting the station for real.

I pulled us away, and changed course for
open space as soon as I saw we'd bounced towards the planet. We barely had
steerage speed now, but I wanted us heading where there was nothing to hit.

I sat there in shock for a moment.

There are some days when you shouldn’t get
out of bed.

It got worse.

"Good," said a voice I didn’t
recognize behind me, but which was vaguely familiar. "There you are."

I turned. Jane was standing there. But this
wasn’t Jane. Her face and body were the same, but her skin and uniform were jet
black. There was a look of unholy glee on her face, as she stalked towards me.

My suit shifted to full protection mode.

She stopped a half dozen paces away, and
grinned at me.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I'm Jane. Who else would I be?"

"You're the station AI?"

"That’s right. I'm Jane, the station
AI. I'm also Jane the ship AI, Jane the Droid AI, and Jane the killer. And I'm
here to kill you."

The grin became bigger.

I thought rapidly. This had to be one of
the security droids, not Jane's primary avatar. One on one, it had the
advantage. Underneath the suit was an exoskeleton, not bones. It would take a
while, but slugging it out would only have me losing.

I needed another option. I had another
option.

The sword materialized on my back, and I
smoothly drew it. In one fast swipe, I cut the head off the droid. Its suit
shredded immediately, leaving a droid head on the floor, and a still reaching
for me body. Without stopping the swing, I brought the sword up and around, and
cut the droid cleanly in half down its full length.

I checked ship systems, and found our
shields were regenerating. Coms were completely out, meaning the HUD and nav
maps were useless. The sensors would still be gathering data, but had no way of
communicating it to screens any more.

"You okay boss?" pinged in from
Lacey.

At least pings still worked. But it meant
Camel was very close by, which wasn’t a good sign.

"Ship has no coms, and bugger all
shields. What's happening out there?"

"Big furball in progress. Ten plus
squadrons launched from the station."

"Tagged AND Bagged!"

The latter sounded like Jessie, but how it
came through a ping from Lacey was something I didn’t have the time to
consider.

"Protect BigMother until we get some
shields back."

"Roger that."

Not only didn’t we have shields, we also
didn’t have Mosquito's for incoming missiles. There was nothing I could do, but
leave defense to Lacey and his people.

I needed to find out what was going on
here.

I headed down again on a hunch, touching
down on the Cargo Deck.

The sight before me stopped me cold.

Hundreds of Jane's were fighting it out
with each other. About a third of them were black, and the others either normal
Jane, or the security guard's she emulated, mixed in with unsuited combat
droids which seemed to be on both sides. Pulse Rifles were firing from all the
combat droids, dark and light, and light lasers firing from all the security
droids. On the other side of them, fighting in a defensive formation, appeared
to be several of my teams.

"Jane!" I called out. "I
need a wedge formation around me now."

I walked calmly out onto the Cargo Deck,
like a fictional Knight walking into a battle. My sword was in my right hand,
held ready to swing.

The nearest dark Jane came at me, and I
moved the sword so both hands would wield it, and cut the droid in half. A
dozen Janes formed up around me, giving me protection to the sides and back,
while I moved with a purpose.

I strode forwards towards the next nearest
dark Jane, and the sword moved. Step forwards, swing, and step over. Forwards,
swing, and step over. Rinse and repeat. The occasional combat droid moved
towards me, and I took care of it as well.

Janes swarmed around me, staying away from
my flashing sword, but intercepting all the shots fired at me. I lost track of
time. I crossed and re-crossed the Cargo Deck, going from one target to the
next. My focus came down to which dark Jane was closest, and what my sword and
feet were doing.

And finally, there was one. The last dark
Jane was a combat suit. I could tell it was dark only because it was fighting
the light ones.

I strode towards it, and seeing me coming,
it started running at me. I let it come, but instead of waiting for it to reach
me, I hurled the sword at it when I was sure I wouldn’t miss. Janes came
between us so it couldn’t reach me, and the combat droid swiped at the sword. The
arm was cut completely off and dropped to the deck, while the sword continued
through the suit and came out the other side. The remaining Janes grabbed hold
of both sides of the rent in its middle, and pulled it apart.

I stood there panting. The sword vanished.

It was over. Here. I needed to secure the
Bridge. I only hoped it didn’t need securing.

On the way up I checked my suite for Angel.
She was curled up in a tight ball on the top of her kitty castle, with Nut
curled up with her. Nut wasn’t the most aware of cats, so Angel must have
sought him out, and convinced him to join her. I patted them both quickly, told
them I’d be back when it was safe for them to come out, and shot out again.

At the top of the access shaft, I found a
combat suit.

"You okay Jon?" asked Annabelle.

"Yes. But you missed a hell of a
battle down on the Cargo Deck."

"Battle?"

"Later. Did Jane come out?"

"No."

I walked up to the door to the Bridge, and
gingerly pulled it open.

Jane was still where she had been, still
Jane, and still rigid.

"Jane?"

"Here Jon."

The voice came from Bridge coms. I had no
idea why Jane could still talk to me with no com room active.

"Sitrep."

"I remain in control of BigMother,
Gunbus, and Excalibur, but as you found out, I lost control of some of the
combat and security droids. My avatar is still battling."

"Anything we can do?"

"No. She has to win this one on her
own. Destroying the coms was a great idea, but it means I can't help her now.
It’s a good thing I don’t actually live in the coms room though, or need the
com lines. I live in the whole ship. Now if you’d destroyed the computer room,
it would have been a problem."

"What was, is, attacking you?"

"It was me Jon. Dark, twisted, but
me."

"How?"

"I don’t know yet, but I will be
finding out."

"Can you get repair droids to reroute
coms through Gunbus?"

"On it already. That was good thinking
Jon. Until you destroyed the ship's coms, I was losing. The station seems to
have a very powerful coms array, and it was overpowering me until you pulled
the plug."

"Do we know what's happening on the
station?"

"No. It will be a few minutes to
complete the reroute. Point Defenses managed to protect the ship reasonably
well, but we took some missile hits, and have some minor hull damage as a
result. I've got repair droids on fixing damage already. We were lucky in one
respect, none of the Mosquito AI's were affected. It looks like the station me
went for me, and me only. But when you severed the coms, you also severed the
Mosquito AI's link to the sensors."

"We should fix that. Even if we lose
all primary systems, the guns and launchers should still be able to function
locally."

"Confirm that. I'll have local sensors
installed for each one."

"Lacey," I pinged,
"sitrep."

"All quiet out here. We've taken
casualties, but the day is ours. SR droids from Custer are collecting
survivors."

"Any word from the station?"

"No. Sorry."

"Land anyone who needs to land, form
the rest up into a CAP."

"Roger that."

"Coms are back up," said Jane.

"Hunter to One actual. Sitrep."

"Thank goodness," said Amanda.
"We have problems. The station security forces have been joined by some of
the droids Jane had impersonating crew, and some of Jane's combat suits went
amok. We are so evenly matched now, and we can't break through."