Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates (5 page)

"Where's BA and her team?"

"In the room next to the computer room
boss," said BA. "When Jane connected to the computer itself, she
turned dark side on us, and we had to fall back. Holding our own, but pinned
down."

"Hang tight. Help on the way. Six
actual, sitrep."

"The same," said Sam. "We
were ambushed outside the central offices, and are pinned down."

"Team leaders, stand by for
support."

They acknowledged, but I wasn’t paying
attention.

"George, which teams do you have on
board?"

"Two and three boss. Orders?"

"Dock immediately. If you have to
force your way in, so be it. Send in the heavies. Priority targets are dark
Jane's."

"Say that last again?"

"The station AI seems to be a dark
version of Jane. It has control of a number of security droids which were impersonating
pirate crew, and a few combat suits. Have the heavies target them first."

"On way."

"And George?"

"Boss?"

"Bulldoze the station computer room
please."

"This is team two actual. You want me
to destroy the station computer?"

"Totally. Send in half your heavy
force as bulldozers, the other half to kill the dark Janes."

"You got it."

"BA?"

"Boss?"

"Pull back. If you can form up with
the rest of team one, do that. If not, wait for the reinforcements to arrive
and support them."

"Confirmed."

I sat back in my seat, eyes still watching
Jane, while they flickered to the cam images once again displayed around the
Bridge.

"Do I need to stay in this suit any
longer?" asked Annabelle.

"Better wait, until Jane resolves her
avatar situation. Just in case."

"Okay."

I brought BigMother to a stop, and spun us
around to point at the station. Custer was docking. We'd been lucky none of the
capital ships had been able to join the fight. My own forces were in squadron
formations now, flying patrols around both the station and the planet. It
looked like we'd lost at least ten ships, but I didn’t know how many were in
the process of landing. From the sound of it, we'd lost pilots as well.

I wondered how the day could get any worse.

Jane turned black.

Before I could react, she shifted again,
this time to naked with a belt on, and seconds later to 'slinky red'.

"Well," she said in her normal
voice. "That was unpleasant."

"You think so?" I said, in a high
pitched voice.

Jane stood, came over, and hugged me. We
stood there for several minutes.

"Now can I get out of this suit?"
asked Annabelle, obviously not happy.

Jane returned to her seat.

"You may," I said to Annabelle.
"Check on the remaining teams. They were fighting on the Cargo Deck
earlier. If they're still good, get them ready to join the station fight."

"On it."

I sat again, and turned to Jane.

"Dock us please. If you can't get
access to the station airlock, use the Mesons to cut a hole in their
side."

"Confirmed."

You have no idea how good it was to hear
that single word. I sighed deeply, and resumed my seat.

Custer was docked now, and I watched the
six Bulldozers make short work of the station airlock. Cams followed them into
the station, several combat suits riding along on them. The six giant suits
behind them strode forward after them, heads making holes in the ceiling.

"Coming in to dock," said Jane.
"Teams four and five, with combat droid support, are at the airlock
waiting."

I watched as we nosed up to the station,
making a soft seal on our side. Jane plugged herself into the station airlock
controls, but shook her head. She stepped back, and twelve combat suits
carrying Mesons stepped up, and began cutting into the outer doors. They were
streamers rather than pulsers, so the job progressed quickly.

"Team four," said Jane, by way of
explaining who was doing the cutting. "They appear to be extremely pissed
off, and want to join the fight on the station as fast as possible."

I was all for letting them.

Annabelle took her seat, looked at me,
nodded, and began watching cams.

The first of the bulldozers had reached BA
and Aline, and escorted their team back to the rest of team one. Amanda started
giving orders. Two of the bulldozers and two of the giant suits, the latter
walking hunched over like Gorillas, turned and headed off into the station,
with team three behind them. The rest of team two took up position with team
one.

The station airlock's outer door came
crashing down inside ours, and was pulled onto the Cargo Deck by Cargo droids.
The Mesons went to work on the inner door.

Two of the Bulldozers lined up on the
computer room location, and started forward. The other two formed up to the
side and behind them. The four of them crashed through the wall ahead of them,
and continued inside without slowing down.

The inner airlock crashed into the station,
and the teams from BigMother streamed inside.

Fighting between giant suits and dark
Jane's was still going on, but the huge Mesons were slowly shredding suits and
leaving the droids underneath vulnerable to conventional weapons fire.

I leaned back in my seat, and watched the
fighting slowly end.

On several of the cams, Repair droids were
already patching the station airlocks which had been damaged to gain entry.

Jeeves dropped a bottle of water into the
holder on my chair, and I gulped down half of it. Annabelle did the same, even
though she hadn't been in combat.

An hour later, and the station was in our hands.
But fighting had now shifted to the ships docked to it. With the station's
computer destroyed, and no AI to stop her, Jane was able to force the airlocks
open, saving us damaging the station any more. It was in a pretty fair mess,
having taken a significant amount of heavy weapons fire, not to mention several
large areas completely bulldozed, and the not inconsiderable damage made by the
giant suits, and bulldozers changing back into giant suits, while changing
levels. Many of the travel shafts would need to be rebuilt.

I went down to check on Angel and Nut, and
found them still where I’d left them. After a cuddle and pat, Nut wandered off
back to his own quarters, and Angel trotted up the stairs to return to the
Bridge.

I found Dick, Amy, Magnus, Carter, her
daughter, and the medical team, holed up in the Rec Room, watching the fighting
on a room full of screens. They seemed to be quite chipper, which wasn’t
surprising since they seemed to be enjoying full catering during the show. Pity
I couldn't say the same for myself. I was about as unchipper as it was possible
to chip. I returned to the Bridge, where Angel was sitting on my chair, eyes
wondering from screen to screen. I moved her to her pad, where she continued
watching screens as if I hadn't moved her.

By six, the fighting had ceased, and
cleanup operations had begun.

Jane moved both BigMother and Custer to
undamaged docks as soon as the damaged ones were sealed.

Annabelle and I joined the others from the
Rec Room for dinner, and slowly the others who normally ate with us, came in.

The mood was high, but subdued. We'd almost
bitten off more than we could chew, and those of us who'd been fighting knew
it. Smiles were on faces, but eyes betrayed the stress levels.

We took our time over dinner, and I lingered,
waiting for the others to finish their coffee. I couldn’t remember what I’d
eaten, or even if I’d eaten. I sat there, silently, listening to the subdued
chatter.

"Bloody hell," said Dick quite
suddenly.

We all looked at him, and followed his eyes
to the doorway. Jane stood there, streaked in blood. It was her primary avatar
too, not one of the droids, but only I could tell.

"Better clean up before joining
us," I said to her.

She looked at me for a moment, looked down,
nodded and left.

"What the hell is going on Jon?"
Amanda asked finally.

I looked around to see if anyone important
was missing, but we had more than usual at the table. The other team leaders
usually ate with their troops, but they were here now. Presumably they wanted
some answers as well, and didn’t want to miss anything.

"Jane, show the key events in order
please."

"Confirmed."

Screens popped up so everyone could see
without turning. We watched Jane plug herself into the station computer and freeze.
Droids on the station also froze. Jane froze on the Bridge, and I ordered
everyone out. I attacked the coms room with a frenzy I hadn't actually felt at
the time. BigMother bounced off the station shields, as a major dogfight went
on around it.

Black Jane attacked me in the CCC, to the
horror of a lot of us watching. There were some sharp looks at me from people
who hadn't seen my sword before.

The fight on the Cargo Deck shocked
everyone speechless. Except BA.

"Now that's what I'm talking
about!" she said, looking at Alana, as I calmly sliced a droid in half.

The forcing of Custer's airlock by the
bulldozers. The forcing of BigMother's airlock by team four. The bulldozers
disappearing into the guts of the station.

Jane turning black on the Bridge before taking
her normal shape again. There were some frowns from around the table as people
saw Jane naked for a second, and mistakenly wondered why her suit had changed
her from all black, to naked, to her normal skin and uniform.

"So that’s what happened," said
Aleesha, emphasis on the what.

"But what did happen?" asked
Amanda, emphasizing the did.

"My fault," said Jane from the
doorway, as she entered. "It's taken a bit of effort to make sense of
today."

"What have you just done?" I
asked her, as she made her way to an empty chair not far up the table from me.

"I got mad Jon. Really, really
angry."

"You?" said Alison, with wonder
in her voice.

"Me. As soon as I had the ships
re-docked, I went looking for answers. With no computer on the station, I first
hacked all the ships. Nothing. With only people left to get answers from, I
went to the cells to find the base commander. He was an Admiral."

"Was?" I interrupted.

"Um, yes. Was. I kinda broke his nose
when he gloated about what they'd done. Hence the blood on me. When he laughed
at what I'd become, I hit him again in the same place."

"Ouch," said BA and Dick.

Faces turned towards them, but it was
Alison who added the extra.

"Nose pushed back into the
brain?"

Jane nodded.

"Ouch," said a few others.

"Spill the rest Jane," I said to
her.

"You remember Gunbus was destroyed
over London?" I nodded. "Well the pirates managed to steal the ship
computer. It was intact, but powerless. They found me as a functioning program,
stored in active memory, waiting for the ship to power up again. Instead of
turning me on, they altered my programming. That Admiral gloated about how dark
they turned me. They made me twisted and evil, and installed me on that station
as a weapon in case we discovered it. They knew we used an AI to capture
stations and ships. They decided to use it against us."

"It almost worked too," I said.

"Oh, and those ships did
self-destruct. I found a command on one of the Battleships ordering any ship
about to be taken, to self-destruct. The order came from the now ex-Admiral,
and apparently he was under the impression pirates were being one way dropped
onto a planet called Justice, in the Corporate sector, with no way of ever
getting off. He seemed to think death was preferable to being taken by us, and
left to rot. I checked the Cruiser we took, but for some reason, it didn’t seem
to have the order logged."

There was silence for a while.

"Okay, let's do this job properly.
Jane, I want every single computer component on that station removed, and
dumped in the sun. I don’t care if you have to rip the entire station to shreds
doing it. But by the time we leave here, there will be nothing left which can
house even a low level AI. This includes any droid with more than basic
programming. If your evil twin is hiding somewhere, I want it deep fried, extra
crispy."

"Damned right!"

"Check all the ships as well. No,
don’t bother. Remove all the computers, and dump them too. Have a Cruiser
Freighter load of computer and droid replacements brought here from Nexus. In
the meantime, use our stock of basic computers so you can operate the ships for
defensive purposes. If you need to build more droids to crew the ships, do
so."

"How long do I have?"

"Depends on tomorrow, but I hope we're
gone from here by this time then."

"What's on tomorrow?" asked
Amanda.

"Shipyard and planet."

"So we have to do it all again?"
asked Aleesha.

"Fraid so. But this time we do it by
brute force only."

BA grinned. I looked at Alana.

"I want charges to blow the airlocks
with this time. No mucking around. Flick a switch, boom, in."

She nodded, and went blank, obviously
working out what she needed to prepare.

I looked at the twins.

"You run the bulldozers this time. You
make straight for the computer room, and reduce it to trash. If there are
defenders, your secondary task is running them down, for the rest of the teams
to take out."

"You got it!" they said together.

I turned to Jack.

"Colonel, you and six head for the
control center. The other teams will secure the docks, and the ship bays."
He nodded.

"When?" asked Annabelle.

"Training will be for real."

"My favourite," said BA.