Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates (6 page)

Not long after, I stopped off to cuddle
Angel, and headed for my Ready Room. I found Jane in there waiting for me.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I
screwed up."

"No, we did."

"I never considered I might be
vulnerable to a tampered with version of me."

"I didn’t either. And I was the one
who was so concerned about a Gunbus or Excalibur not being captured."

"But that was more about the ship, not
me."

"True, but I should have thought about
it as well."

"I should have guarded against it. I
put in place everything I thought I needed to stop another AI from doing what
I've been doing to ships and stations, but it never occurred to me to guard
against me."

"We live and learn."

"Am I living?"

"Sure you are. You heard the Entities.
You're just different."

We sat there in silence for a bit, until
Dick knocked on the door. I waved him in.

"Got a moment?" he asked.

"Sure. What's up?"

"Security on the station."

"What about it?"

"We have nearly a thousand people in
detention cells, which were designed for half that number. What do we do with
them?"

"Separate out the ones with
outstanding warrants and bounties. We'll take them with us, and turn them over
to African sector authorities. The rest can make a choice. They can be taken to
Morocco or Libya, where they can go where they please, or we can leave them on
the planet, depending on what we find there."

"No sleep for me then," he said,
before bounding out of the room looking happy.

"Cops," I said to Jane, and we
both laughed.

Jane stopped abruptly.

"Weak signal coming in from the
planet."

"Let's see."

"Audio only."

"To whoever attacked the station
today. There are hundreds of people down here being used as slaves. For pity
sake help us. To whoever…"

Jane shut it off.

"It’s a repeating loop."

"Origin?"

"I can't find it. Which is probably
wise on their part. I'll send a comnavsat into low orbit, and start counting
upside down beans."

"You do that," I laughed.

I pinged Annabelle to join me. When she did,
Jane played the audio for her.

"Prepare for ground assault after we
secure the Shipyard?"

"Yes. Jane will let you know defenses,
as soon as she discovers them."

"No sleep for me then."

"Better get some, in case they have
something to spring on us like they did today."

"Let them try."

"No, I’d rather we figure out what
they can do, and make sure they can't."

"As I said, no sleep for me."

She hurried out, also looking happier.

Magnus came in. I waved her to a lounge
chair.

"Any word on our ship?" she asked.

I looked at Jane. She shook her head.

"Really?" I asked her.

"No sign of it. Although it's possible
it's on the Shipyard, in one of the enclosed bays."

"We'll find out tomorrow then."

"Were any of my people on the
station?" asked Magnus.

"No," said Jane.

"They could be on the planet," I
said. "We'll know tomorrow."

She looked at me with a look which said
worry was eating her up. She left unhappier than she'd arrived.

Before anyone else could come in, I left in
search of some sleep.

There are some days when you shouldn’t get
out of bed. On those days, its best to go back to bed as soon as you can. I
took my own advice. No-one else was using it.

I woke the next morning with tail in my
mouth. Angel was getting too big for sleeping against my neck now, and she
usually slept next to me, with at least some part of her touching me, even if
it was a single paw. Tail in mouth though, wasn’t one of my favorites. I took
the time to give her a decent cuddle, mainly because I really needed it myself,
and Aline wasn’t there. I made it to the Bridge in time to give the day's first
order.

"Go."

BigMother and Custer undocked from the
station, and Unthinkable launched from BigMother. I checked on where the teams
were. One through three were on Custer. Four and five were at the Cargo Deck
airlock below. Six was on Unthinkable. I checked further, and found 266 on CAP,
but the rest of the fighters were below.

I pulled up Lacey's after action report for
the previous day, and found we'd lost two pilots killed. We also had several
still in care units after running out of life support before SR droids reached
them, but having been revived by the droids when recovered. Sobering thought;
ejecting from your ship, to float around the middle of a battle, and die of
life support failure because the SR droids either couldn’t be sent, or couldn’t
reach you in time. With the new belt suits, surviving the destruction of your
fighter was much more likely, but if the seat module with its extra life
support didn’t survive, all you had was suit life support, and it didn’t last
very long. I added the problem to Jane's list of things to do. What with my own
recent brush with suit limitations, what was now the single biggest limitation
of the belt suit needed attention.

Jessie Ball was working. Tag'Em was already
a good distance away, and heading for the most likely place for an additional
jump point to be. With this system seemingly in the middle of four others, the
likelihood of other jump points was high. While we couldn’t say for certain
there was no other pirate presence here, she had proved she could take care of
herself. And in theory, she had as much chance now of coming across a pirate
ship as she did anywhere else. I'd have felt better her taking an escort, but
she hadn't asked, and I hadn't been awake when she left to suggest it.

The shipyard assault went off without a
hitch. The three ships docked together, formed soft seals, explosives were
quickly placed, and with a ping from Alana, all three airlocks were blown
inwards. The teams streamed through. Jane stepped after them, and for each
airlock, manually engaged the docking clamps, so there wouldn’t be any chance
of a sudden decompression. Cargo and repair droids followed, which began to
reseal the inner lock.

I sat there, watching cams. Annabelle was
in her seat, also watching cams, and giving an occasional comment to Jack.
Angel was on her pad, where I’d put her after finding her on my chair again. I
hadn't had breakfast, but she'd had hers, and still beaten me up here. Dick was
on the station still, along with A-Jane, who was back in the D-Jane role to
help him. Jane Prime was in her normal seat here on the Bridge, also observing,
and I assumed, still counting beans.

Unlike the station, there was only a
minimal defense, and it was centered on the command offices. The twins went through
the computer and coms rooms with ease, and left nothing of any consequence
intact behind them. By the time team one reached six, the remaining defenders
were surrendering.

Within an hour, the Shipyard was ours.

In hindsight, we could have simply taken it
over like we had in the past, but that’s the trouble with paranoia. Once
engaged, it's difficult to turn off again.

It took another hour to secure the
Shipyard. Fortunately, Magnus wasn't on the Bridge. Carter had made her wait
down in the Rec Room. If we'd had a climbing wall, she'd likely be at the top
by now.

Finally I had to ask Jane myself.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Have we rescued Magnus's ship?"

"Err."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"Err, no."

"So it's not here?"

"I didn’t say that."

"What did you say?"

"I said Err."

"I got that much. What does it
mean?"

There was the cat version of a snigger
coming from the console, and when I looked around, Annabelle was face-palming.

"Mean?"

"Yes, is the ship here or not?"

"Yes and no."

"Which is it?"

"Both."

"How can it be here and not be here at
the same time?"

"Yes."

I sighed. This is what you get for having
an eccentric AI.

"So yes the ship is here?"

"No."

"The ship isn’t here?"

"No."

I sighed again.

"WHERE IS MY SHIP?" came from
Magnus at the back of the Bridge.

"It's in bay five," answered Jane
quickly.

"Well get it out of there!"

"Where would you like it?" asked
Jane.

"Park it at a dock, stupid."

"Umm, no can do."

"Why not," I asked.

"Tow it if you have to," demanded
Magnus.

"I not quite sure how to tell you
this."

"Straight up," I said.

"You won't like it."

"That much is obvious. Spill it."

"Just a moment, we're going to need
extra help up here."

A few seconds later, Jeeves appeared. I
looked from Jeeves to Magnus, and back to Jane.

"Yes?" I prompted.

"They disassembled it."

Magnus fainted. Jeeves caught her, and
hustled her out, I assumed to where the medicos were.

"How disassembled?"

"Down to the individual hull
plates."

"So it could be put back
together?"

"Maybe."

"Why maybe?"

"The assembly instructions would be
the reverse of the disassembly instructions, which would be stored in the main
computer."

I face-palmed as well. I'm not sure
Annabelle ever stopped.

Teams two, three, and four, having done the
least fighting, or demolishing, stayed to process the prisoners, and transport
them over to the station, where Dick could sort them.

One and Six stood down, and Jack, Sam, and
the twins joined Annabelle, Jane, and I, in the Conference Room.

"What's the bean count?" I asked
Jane, when we were seated with drinks.

"Zero beans. Some large plots of
various food groups, but no beans."

Jack and Sam looked at us strangely, but
the twins were chuckling quietly.

"What's down there?" asked Annabelle.

Jane threw an image to the wall, and pulled
it out into a hollo.

We looked into a vast walled area, which
looked much like the original settlement areas of a lot of planets, where to
protect the settlers, walls were erected to keep any local predators out. The
fact there had rarely been any, didn't stop them being built. Within the wall,
everything grew which the village needed. In this case, there was also what
looked like a mine entrance. The whole enclosure was big enough to house and
feed several thousand people.

On the outside of the wall, the ground had been
cleared for a kilometer on all sides.

"Killing ground?" I asked.

Jane nodded, and zoomed in on the wall
along one side. It was manned by guards in combat suits. Half of them were
facing inward, the other half outward. They all had Pulse Rifles. Every so
often, there was a Meson Blaster mounting.

"Keeping people in?" asked Sam.
"Or keeping something out?"

"Both," said Annabelle.

"So where are the people?" I
asked.

Green and red dots popped up.

"Green is people," said Jane,
"red is guns."

Green dots were clustered in orderly rows
in several large buildings resembling barracks. At one end was a big cluster of
them in a small area. Red dots were moving around the village, and on the
walls. There was a big cluster of red dots at one end of one of the buildings,
set well away from the others. I assumed that was a troop's barracks, with
armoury on the end.

As we watched, a large cluster of green
dots came out of what we assumed was a mine, heading for one of the large
buildings, which was empty of green dots. One of the other buildings had red
dots moving through green ones, making the green ones move around a lot. Once
the green dots outside were inside, the ones on the move inside started going
outside, and heading for the mine.

"What's the time down there?"

"Midnight."

"So shift change in the mine,"
said Amanda.

"Looks like it," said Sam.

"How do we want to do this?"
asked Annabelle.

The discussion lasted until lunchtime. The
other teams were recalled in time for lunch, after which we tooled up ready for
the afternoon's entertainment.

Four in the morning for the planet, and two
in the afternoon for us, we descended on the village.

Custer came in first, hovering two hundred
meters up over the center.

George gave Jane the command, and all the
combat suits moving on the walls and in the streets were reclassified as
missiles. Mosquitos fired off, each one targeting a 'missile'. Seconds later,
every single red dot was down. Before they could get up again, the second wave
of Mosquitoes hit them. A third wave followed. No-one got up.

Custer moved towards the mine entrance, and
came down as low as George dared. Team one launched themselves out of the Cargo
Bay, and used leg thrusters to control their drop to the ground. They were
using the giant suits, as well as normal combat suits. Team two dropped out
behind them. They moved into the mine area. Custer rapidly climbed, and assumed
a high guard at five thousand meters.

Gunbus touched down outside the barracks we
assumed housed the medical center. Unthinkable and Camel also landed next to
barracks. The latter was carrying team six, with five to support them, and they
stormed the troop barracks. Team three was with me, and four was with Annette.
Our job was to get the prisoners out.

The troops with me were divided into
several groups. One group followed me into the medical center. The other headed
for the nearest door into the remainder of the building. Carter and some of her
people were waiting for the okay to join us, in case they were needed to move
anyone. We'd brought several dozen portable care units with us, just in case.

Combat suit sized sword in hand, I kicked
in the door. Inside, I found a combat suit in my way, who'd been expecting me.
His shot hit me in the chest, but didn't slow me down. I sliced him in half
before he could get another shot off. I was mumbling the release words to
myself as I moved further in, trying to assess what the situation was. The team
behind me stopped as I stopped, looking on in shock. Every person in the beds
crammed together here, had a broken limb, which had only been given basic
medical attention. My HUD gave me an assessment of the atmosphere in here, and
I was glad I wasn’t smelling it.

A scream sounded further in, and I went to
investigate. Behind me, Carter was already inside, and giving orders for the
moving of everyone to Gunbus.

On the other side of the room was a door,
which gave entrance into a passage way. There were several doors on each side.
I kicked the first one in, found it empty, and did the same for the next door
on the other side. Also empty, so I kept moving. The next door showed me a
scene which made me very angry indeed.

There was a naked girl on a bed. It was quite
obvious she had a broken arm.

On top of her was a naked man. Thrown over
a chair was a uniform, with what looked like a Colonel's rank on it.

He was raping her. She was resisting,
trying to make her one usable fist hurt him, but without success. She writhed
under him, kicking out when she could, and screaming hysterically. Neither of
them had heard me come in, which was surprising for me given the noise the
combat suits usually made while moving, but on second thoughts, the noise they
were both making would have covered a lot.

Before I could move into the room, his fist
connected solidly with one cheek, and she went limp. I took several fast paces
into the room, grabbed him by the neck, and hauled him sideways so he slid out
of the girl with minimal impact on her, and then hauled him completely off the
bed. The girl screamed again, obviously having no idea what was going on now. I
slammed his face into the wall, hearing the crunch as his nose broke, let go of
his neck, spun him around, and pushed him back against the wall, his feet
scrabbling in empty air.

"Who the fuck are you?" he grated
through several obviously broken teeth.

"Jon Hunter," I answered through
my suit speaker. I laid my sword against his chest, and a line of red appeared.
"Tell me why I shouldn't cut your dick off, and let this girl kill
you."

I cast a glance at the girl, but she was now
curled up in a tight ball, and appeared to have fainted. I wondered if that was
a lucky break for him, or not.

The man glared at me.

"So," he spat at me, blood
spattering my chest. "You're the self-righteous pig whose been slaughtering
us when we object to being arrested, arresting us when we didn’t do you the
courtesy of dying, and dropping the survivors onto a mud ball to rot. I heard
you died there for a while, but I guess it was wishful thinking. Big man needs
his combat suit, doesn’t he? What's the matter? Have I offended your
sensibilities?"

"Yes."

"So, arrest me, throw me in jail, and
send me to rot."

I had no idea what this rot business was
about, but he seemed to be taking it seriously. Wherever this Justice place
was, they seemed to be very afraid of it.

"Why are you raping this girl?"

"Because I can, stupid. I can do what
I like with the slaves here. This is my personal kingdom, and I do what I want."

"Not anymore."

"So arrest me."

"No, I don’t think so. Pirates who
surrender get arrested. Rapists caught in the act deserve something
different."

He actually snorted, his face a sneer. No
mean feat with a broken nose, and shattered teeth.

My right arm dropped, and the sword point
dropped with it. There was no resistance, as a now very small appendage dropped
fee of his body. Blood spurted. He screamed, much louder and longer than the
girl on the bed had. His hands cupped himself, trying to stem the blood flow.

His scream turned into a whimper.

"Help me. I'm bleeding. I'll die if
you don’t stop it."

An info screen popped up, telling me it was
extremely unlikely he would die this way.

"You're going to die anyway. The
question is, do I make it quick, or do I make it last as long as
possible?"

"You can't be Hunter. He's not a cold
blooded killer. They say he's spiritual."

He spat out the last word as if it was a
curse.

I did the release for killing him,
verbally. Still hanging with my left arm holding him against the wall, he
cringed as I said the entire release. I coughed a couple of times after.

When I finished, I lowered him to the
ground, and forced him to kneel.

"Any last words?"

"You won't get away with this!"

I pulled his head up, let him see the sword
coming for him, and then quickly sliced through his neck. Head and body slumped
down and forward. I used a foot to shove both into the corner behind the door.
The girl was still out.

"Carter," I bellowed, as I moved
out into the passage. "Need you in here. ASAP isn’t fast enough."

I didn’t wait for her, but moved down the
rest of the passage, kicking in the doors. There were no surprises in any of
the remaining rooms. I retraced my steps, and exited the building through the
door I'd entered.

"Sitrep," I said into team coms.

I'd had mine turned off, letting Jack
handle the ground action, and Annabelle supervise from BigMother. I stood
there, watching people being moved to Gunbus.

Jack answered, letting me know all teams
had achieved their objectives. All hostiles had been eliminated.

I realized I was still holding my sword,
and sheathed it. It vanished from my back. I walked into Gunbus' Armoury,
parked in a recharge slot, and backed out of the combat suit.

The medical team were still working on
people. I stood at the top of the ramp, looking out. A combat suit came out the
door, carrying the girl. Carter followed. When she saw me, she stopped, gave me
a very strange look, got a hold of herself again, and continued up the ramp
after suit and girl. I turned and watched them place her into one of the care
units.

A group of people were approaching from the
other end of the building. At their head walked a man with barely recognizable
captain's bars on his shoulders.

"Young man," he said, "I
need to speak to your leader immediately."

"Jon Hunter," I said.
"Admiral."

"I thought you'd be bigger," said
someone back in the group.

He was immediately silenced by a woman next
to him.

"I thought you’d be older," said
the captain. "Never mind. This was good work tonight son. But have you
taken the main bunker?"

"What main bunker?"

"I knew it," said the man behind.
"It's too well shielded to be detected from orbit."

"Where is it?" I asked.

My suit changed to full protection mode in that
instant, and the Meson pulse hit me square in the middle of my forehead.