Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates (15 page)

Lacey had a group of senior pilots
gathered, including George and Annette, and were discussing missiles. This was
surprising enough, but the really surprising thing was they were discussing
capital ship missiles as well as fighter ones. Jane filled me in on some of the
earlier discussion, including how limited current missiles were in terms of
roles. I had wondered once a long time ago, how the submarine torpedo seemed to
have never made it into space, when most space combat games had them. Likewise,
the cluster missile, and all sorts of other ideas. Heat seeking and radar had
become Image Recognition. Friend or Foe had come with the development of the
ship ID. But essentially, they were still one explosion, with a modicum of
guidance attached. Or none if you included dumb-fired, which I didn’t, and the
modern small torpedo.

Science fiction had quite often come up
with ships which were many kilometers long, or as large as small moons. As
stupid as killing a moon sized station with a single small missile down the
exhaust port was, if something like this came at us, we'd be resorting to just
this kind of action, since we had nothing big enough to throw at such a
monster.

Likewise, we'd had enough trouble with a
few thousand missiles being launched from average sized ships during the
Midgard war. What if something came at us throwing out tens of thousands of
missiles at a time? Come to think of it, was the thousands of black dots in my
nightmare oncoming missiles? For missiles to cause space to go black was so far
outside my ability to comprehend, I was suddenly chilled. I made an effort not
to show it, and turned my attention back to my pilots themselves.

My senior pilots were growing up. They were
beginning to think beyond the cockpit, a place most pilots hardly knew there
was anything at all beyond. They were starting to think like small fleet
commanders. I left them to it, without saying anything.

Carter was discussing the possible medical
needs of something much bigger than the biblical exodus. With her were most of her
medical team, about half of Magnus' scientists, and Alison. The latter noted me
entering, and nodded my way, before continuing to concentrate on what was being
said.

I'd thought about moving people. I’d
thought about feeding them. But I hadn't given any thought to keeping them
alive medically.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. What were
the ethical considerations of someone with a virulent disease at the time of
evacuation? Did we leave them behind? Did we bring them on board and risk
infection of an entire ship or station? Did we need to make sure the medical
facilities on all ships had containment provisions?

Which led to an even bigger issue of making
sure all ships had as little as adequate medical facilities and provisions, as
I seriously doubted most of them did. They were rigged for relatively short
hops between stations from one system to the next. The possibility of them
needing to run for weeks or months without stopping was something our society
as a whole had no real concept of these days.

Which brought me back to food requirements.
Most ships only carried enough food for a short cruise, with some level of
disaster rations in store. Not only were they not going to have food for a ship
full of rescued people, they would probably have them on board for a lot longer
than anyone expected.

I headed back to my Ready Room in a very
troubled state of mind.

Something bugged me, but for the life of
me, I couldn’t focus on it. I let it find its own way out, knowing it would
sometime.

Dinner was upbeatedly subdued. The tone of
conversations was serious, but very positive. Ideas from one group were shared
with others, and back again. It was a babble, and I kept myself out of it. I
was the first to leave the table.

Back in my Ready Room, Jane gave me a
summary of what all the groups had covered. It took a while.

One thing stood out from all else.

We had no idea what was coming, what it
would hit us with, and what we needed to counter it. If countering was even
possible. The more it seemed we needed to prepare for an invasion, the more
likely a spine wide catastrophic event would catch us unprepared.

But evacuation was the key. There were a
number of things which could be done, and I spent some time with Jane working
them out. We needed time, and a lot of it, and had no idea if we would get it
or not. All the same, we had to start as soon as we could. The planning could
be begun immediately. The real work would have to wait until after the Door had
closed, and we had, hopefully, more information.

Jane turned my attention to weapons, and it
became clear there was only so much she could do to tweak what we already had.
We needed help.

I sent off offers to each of the 'tool men'
I'd come into contact with so far, offering them positions with Hunter
Security, specifically to develop new weapons, new suit advancements, and
anything else they could think of which might help. I offered them shares in
anything developed which had civilian applications, suddenly reminded I'd once
promised to find a way of doing cheaper suits designed for cats and dogs. I
also contacted the administrators of the Shipyards I'd been to, asking them to
recommend missile and weapons specialists I could recruit.

I copied the lot to David Tollin, and told
him to aggressively recruit the best he could find, and if need be, send
Lightnings to pick them and their families up. By the time I returned to Nexus,
I wanted a weapons development team up and running. If it meant building them a
station dedicated to research and development, he was to get Janine to design
and build it immediately.

Angel made her presence known, and I gave my
attention to her for a while.

It was then I figured out what was bugging
me. One of our requirements was to document how the first planet died. The
problem was, how to do that without dying with it.

If this was science fiction, I'd simply
borrow a cloaking device from someone. But although they'd been working on them
for centuries, no-one had come even remotely close to building one which
actually worked. There were simply too many variables. It had to be invisible
to the nav map and HUD. This could be done, as I’d discovered. But it had to
also be invisible to mass detectors. Unexplained mass, particularly when it
moved like a ship did, tended to get investigated. Even if you masked
electronic presence and mass, you still needed to make it actually invisible in
case someone looked out a window. Even then, you still needed to mask off any
engine emissions, power emissions, and any sensor usage. Doing this in an
atmosphere had its own additional problems.

I asked Jane to research what had been
achieved so far. Maybe we could adapt something, once we knew what we were up
against.

With too much on my mind, I finally went
down to bed.

Aline took one look at my face, kissed me
goodnight, and fell asleep while I was still pulling my socks off.

That night, I dreamed I was walking down a
long dark passageway.

Lights came on behind me, throwing my
shadow out ahead of me as I walked.

The white light of the Divine suddenly
appeared in front of me, making it impossible to see anything else.

I walked into it, and was gone.

We down jumped into the Last Hope system a
few minutes before five the next morning, on high alert. The Battleship had
come on. I'd considered slowing down so we had the advantage as the Battleship
down jumped in front of us, but on second thoughts, combat in the War system,
so close to such a nasty asteroid field wasn’t a good choice. I’d made the
choice before going to bed just before ten. Six and half hours sleep hadn't
really been enough, but I could cope with it. The situation was pumping me full
of adrenalin.

The Last Hope system seemed to be at war.
There were two friendly fleets on the other side, having recently jumped in
from Morocco, with pirates scattered about trying to escape them. They were all
coming towards where we were going to be jumping in.

The big question was why.

I didn’t have time to ponder it further. As
soon as we appeared in the system, we were in range of the Battleship's main
guns, and it opened up on us.

I pulled our speed off, ponderously pointed
Prometheus away from the Battleship, and pushed our speed up again. Having
effectively more than doubled the length of ship the maneuvering thrusters had
to move, with none of them at all along more than half the overall length, we'd
lost the advantage BigMother normally had. So major course changes were now
going to take time. I resented the need to do one now, but better safe than
sorry.

A full salvo of capital ship missiles left
their launchers. They crossed with the pulses coming the other way. Half of the
pulses missed, but my sudden turn, as ponderous as it felt like, had at least
allowed us to take the hit on our rear shields. They went down by more than
fifty percent, and I braced for the next broadside from the Battleship.

There wasn’t one. It jumped into the War
system. Only a handful of missiles hit before it jumped. Jane set the rest to
inert, and sent out several salvage droids to recover them.

I didn’t stop to wait for them though. I
pointed us back on course for the Morocco jump point, and pushed our speed back
up to near full.

Inside the War system, the Battleship icon
seemed to spin out of control.

"Seems they hit that big roid,"
said Jane, with a grin.

The icon steadied, and moved slowly
in-system.

"Still moving though. Looks like they
bounced off without killing themselves."

"Where do they think they're
going?" asked Grace.

"Good place to hide?" suggested
Dick.

"Could be," I said. "But a
ship that big is going to be in serious danger from the asteroids in
there."

"They won't have known that,"
said Amanda. "Didn’t we just say the system was full of asteroids, without
actually saying how dangerous they were?"

"True. Abigail, you better com the
fleet commanders and advise them the Battleship jumped into a particularly
nasty asteroid field, and not to go blundering in there after it. Much better
if they blockade the jump point on this side and wait for it to come out. When
I can get some forces here, I'll relieve them of the need, assuming it hasn’t
come out on its own before then."

"On it boss."

"Jane, keep an eye on it. If it
doesn’t come out by the time we're ready to take a station in there, we’ll have
to take a force in to hunt it down. With luck though, it will come out on its
own, and one of these sector fleets will take care of it."

"Confirmed."

An hour later, having managed a rushed
breakfast, the next pirate ship came in range of our missiles. The Frigate died
well before we came into range of its guns, from a salvo of missiles we sent it
at long range. I wasn’t intending to stop for anything.

Ahead of us, there were four Corvettes
around a Cruiser, the five escorted by two squadrons of Gladiators. The Cruiser
captain obviously carried some weight, as the Gladiators would have been better
served escorting the now dead Frigate.

Lacey popped up on a side screen, from the
Bridge of Camel, where he always was when combat was likely.

"Sir, let us take this group."

"It means leaving you behind. I'm not
stopping until we get to the Shipyard."

"We can catch you up there. It'll take
you at least a couple of hours to get Prometheus docked with the Shipyard. It
should be enough time."

"Two hours then. Not a minute more.
We're on the clock, and it's ticking down far too fast for my liking."

"Fine sir. Will you at least slow down
so we can launch?"

I groaned, but reluctantly agreed.

I had a pretty good idea of who was going
to launch.

"George?"

"Boss?"

"No."

"You take all the fun out of life.
Sir."

I let that go, but there were grins all
around the Bridge. Camel and 266 I could afford to leave behind if it came to
that. But Custer was the only ship I couldn’t at this point replace quickly.
Besides, I'd never intended it to be used as a fighter.

I pondered if this was the right thing or
not. My sole aim at the moment was getting Prometheus to the Shipyard in one
piece, and then getting home. The last thing I needed was combat damage of any
kind. The gap between when the Door at home opened, and how long it would take
to get home at top speed, was narrowing with every delay now.

I sighed, and changed course to take us
away from the small battle group coming at us. The sector fleets were still on
the other side of the system from us chasing their own pirates, so were not a
lot of help. And the last thing I needed other than combat damage, was pirates
hiding out in the War system indefinitely, especially if they raided Last Hope
for supplies periodically.

A half hour later, we were far enough away
to prevent us taking fire from the pirate fleet, but close enough my smaller
ships could intercept them. We were also on the very edge of missile range. I
slowed down to a normal Carrier launch speed.

"Launch," I said.

Camel and Unthinkable launched immediately,
quickly followed by Tag'Em and 266 squadron. I opened my mouth to call Annette
and the Centurion pilots back, but closed it again. Unthinkable wasn’t as fast
as a Camel, although better armed, and the Centurions were a bit slower than
the Excalibur's. But if the pilots thought they could make it in the two hours
allocated for them to catch up, who was I to argue? Sure, I was the Admiral,
but sometimes you had to let your people do their thing.

"Fire," I said to Jane, and a
salvo of missiles headed towards the Cruiser.

I pushed our speed up again, angling away
still. When we were well out of range, I put us back on line for the Morocco
jump point.

The two forces behind us met. Most of the
missiles aimed at the Cruiser were intercepted by Mosquitos, but a few hit. But
it left the Cruiser in full firing order, which bothered me. But all I could do
now was watch. It was up to Lacey to fight this battle. The urge to turn around
and finish the Cruiser was strong, but I resisted it.

Lacey formed his Corvettes up into a line,
with Camel in the middle, Tag'Em on his left, and Unthinkable on his right. The
two faster ships matched speed with Unthinkable. The Excalibur's formed an
arrow head in front of them, and the Centurions formed a line on both sides of
the Corvettes.

The Gladiators peeled off from the fleet
and came towards my little one. They had numbers, but had no idea of just how
outclassed they were. The Excalibur's moved to meet them, the Centurions
remaining where they were.

Lacey lined up the Cruiser, with each small
group of Centurions lining up a Corvette each. On his order, the Corvettes
fired at the Cruiser with all forward guns and a full salvo of torpedoes. The
lead Centurions did the same at their Corvettes. Camel and Tag'Em, went high,
while Unthinkable went low, the idea being to loop around the Cruiser to have a
go at the Corvettes on the other side. The lead Centurions also went high, the
next low, and the last high, after they had fired at their targets.

The Cruiser fired a broadside towards my
Corvettes, and almost immediately exploded. The two Corvettes on the same side
also died a few seconds later.

The icon for Unthinkable vanished.

"Annette!" yelled Annabelle.

There was no answer from ship coms, and we
were still in range. All we were getting was normal combat chatter, which made
me wonder if anyone had realized Unthinkable was gone.

One of the Corvettes on the other side of
the Cruiser took some of the torpedoes which missed, and started tumbling off
to one side, and down. The other one saw Camel coming, and decided to go head
to head, which ended badly for it a few seconds later. Camel tore through the
remains, and dived into the middle of the remaining Gladiators like an avenging
angel.

We passed out of range of ship coms before
the last of the pirates was destroyed.

I could feel several looks burning into me,
and I didn’t need to turn around to know whose. But I wasn’t stopping. I'd made
that clear. All I could do for now, was hope Annette had survived, and someone
would pick her up before her life support ran out.

It was a good, long, ten minutes before we
heard anything.

"Email from Lacey, Jon," said
Jane.

I threw the vid to a side screen.

"Annette's ok," he said with a
grin.

There were cheers all round.

"She took the full broadside from the
Cruiser a few seconds after it blew up. Most of the top half of Unthinkable was
destroyed, but her suit protected her. She ended up in space, with her chair
intact, and managed to get back aboard. Nightshade was only damaged slightly,
and she's in the process of launching from the wreckage. I suspect she'll have
to shoot her way out the hanger doors. Once she's free, she can dock with me.
More when I know anything."

The vid ended. Nightshade was her original
ship, and while updated, was slower than the Centurions. Had she been on her
own, she'd have ended up arriving back at the Shipyard well after we'd left.

Over the next few hours, more pirates died.
But the casualties were not one sided, as both sector fleets had lost ships,
and taken damage. There was nothing I could do. We couldn’t get there any
faster than we were going already, even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t.

Annette had been our only casualty,
although one of the Centurions was now tucked up in Tag'Em's hanger. Lacey
updated us with her successful docking with Camel, and the Camel's and 266
squadron were now following after us at the top speed of the Centurions. This
allowed Camel to tow the remains of Unthinkable, while Tag'Em was towing the
damaged and surrendered Corvette.

With nothing about to happen for a while, I
suggested everyone go and do their own thing, and moved into my Ready Room.
Angel followed, and went to sleep on my lap. I reviewed Lacey's attack plan,
and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Annette had simply been unlucky the
Cruiser had been able to get off a shot, and had chosen to fire everything it
had at her. Even so, she'd slipped a lot of the pulses, but there had simply been
too many to avoid all of them on the course they were flying. I wondered how
she was feeling.

Sure enough, an email came in from her
shortly after.

"Sorry boss. I screwed up and cost you
a ship. I've been so comfortable flying Unthinkable, I'd forgotten she was only
a Corvette. She's probably salvageable though. I've included the scans. While
I’d like to see her rebuilt, I still want to go to Outback, so I guess you need
to rethink my assignment. I can fly Nightshade with 266 if Jane tinkers with
getting some more speed out of her. Sorry boss."

I pulled up the scans.

"Jane?"

"Not salvageable."

"Not at all?"

"While a lot of her is intact, the
core structure is compromised too much. Best we can do is salvage what we can,
and use it to build a new ship."

"Damn. Do we need a new
Corvette?"

"You’re the boss. What do you
think?"

"We need more Cruisers and bigger. And
we do need pilots for them."

"Give her a Cruiser?"

"I'll think about it."

It was something to think about. If what I
thought was coming did indeed come, we were going to need a lot more than we
had. And I didn’t have the people for what I already had. Sure I could leave
piloting to Jane, but it was far better in combat to have a person flying the
ships.

"Homer's command crew are going stir
crazy."

"And this is relevant, how?"

"Just talking about Cruisers and
bigger."

She had a point. I had a full three shift
Bridge crew doing nothing, at the same time I was going to need Bridge crews.

"Are they using the simulators?"

"Only the pilots. The rest are bored
out of their brains."

"What say we let them do shifts in the
CCC, not flying the ship, but running training scenarios on every sized ship
there is. Get them cross trained to fly anything. We would then have the basis
for three ship crews, on ships we decide need crews. In fact, see if they will
cross train even further so we can make six or more small crews, as support for
a pilot. The ships don’t really need crews but since we have them, it would be
good for a pilot to not be alone on a big ship."