Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates (2 page)

I was wading through four months
accumulation of emails, still feeling the morning training session. The night
before had been a late Valentine's Day for lots of the crew, and had been a
somewhat late night for a lot of people. Aline had milked it for all it was
worth, in spite of the rest of the team preventing us from having a quiet
romantic dinner together, and she didn’t let me get to sleep until well past
two in the morning. I suspected some of the crew had been out all night.

"All back on board," said Jane.
"But Carter wants to see you straight away."

"Get us moving then. We don’t need to
speed run, but I want to make good time home."

"Ah, wait until Carter has spoken to
you."

"Why?"

"She has someone with her."

"A Lightning can return her guest
after."

"Maybe."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She didn’t answer.

I didn’t have long to wait. Carter poked
her nose around the door, and begged my humble indulgence to talk to me. Well,
maybe not, but she should have.

"Can I have a moment of your
time?" she asked, not yet fully in the door.

"Sure. A moment. I want to get us
moving as soon as possible."

"Um, about that."

"What?"

She finally entered the room, pulling
someone I didn’t know with her. The guest I assumed.

I stayed seated. Not very gentlemanly, but I
was feeling Admiraly instead.

"Admiral Hunter, this is Dr. Carol
Magnus."

Magnus was a heavy-set woman in her
mid-forties. She had the battle-axe look about her which suggested she normally
got her way, and one should tell her no at one's peril. She tentatively reached
a hand across the desk, and I shook it. I waved them to chairs. And raised an
eyebrow.

Magnus cleared her throat, while Carter
tried to avoid my eyes.

"You wanted something?" I hinted.

Not very charitable I admit, but I wasn’t
in the mood. My mind was fully on going home.

"Magnus needs your help," spat
out Carter in a rush.

"I'm not for hire right now."

"I know, but this is important."

"Not as important as me being at the
other end of the spine as soon as possible."

"Yes it is," said Magnus
suddenly.

I leaned back in my chair. And realized I
was being pompous. I let myself deflate.

"Tell me."

"Better tell him everything
Carol," said Carter.

"I represent a group of people trying
to find a way to survive the great blockage."

I blinked a few times, not having heard the
radiation system at the core end of the spine called that before.

"We've been trying to find a way of
surviving in there for many years now. None of our attempts to enter have been
successful so far."

"I know," I interrupted. "I
came across one of the unfortunates from the attempt twenty odd years ago.
Child of parents who made the attempt, and born, how shall I put it,
abnormal?"

"We heard, when she went on trial. That
mission is still classified, as are all of ours."

"Nice objective, but what do you need
me for?"

"Two things. First, our explorer ship
was taken by pirates two days ago in the Nepal system. The pirates have been in
touch demanding we pay ransom for the crew's return."

"I don’t do rescues!" I broke in.

They both looked at me as if I was stupid.

"I especially don’t do rescues DOWN
the spine, NOW. I'm heading UP spine as soon as you're off the ship."

"These pirates you will want to go
after. From what I hear, they have a big fleet."

"Fine. I'm interested. But next
month."

"We don’t have that long."

I stopped myself from saying anything, and
just stared at her.

"The other thing which might interest
you, is our purpose in entering the great blockage. We want to salvage
Prometheus."

My mouth fell open. I'd just been
successful in salvaging Enterprise, her sister ship.

"Got you," said Jane via my PC.

Got me indeed.

"Jane, get Jack up here please."

"Confirmed."

"So you are interested?" asked
Carter.

"What do you intend to do with
Prometheus?" I asked Magnus.

"We don’t want the ship, just any
remains still recoverable, and the data which it has stored. While we don’t
know what data it has, the crew must have been studying the system at the time
it killed them, and it’s a reasonable assumption the sensors were never turned
off, and hundreds of years of data are now available."

"Probably not hundreds," I said.
"Decades maybe. The ship's power sources would not have lasted for
hundreds of years without maintenance. Most likely, the computer failed a few
years later, with the rest of her systems. Do you know where she is?"

"Not exactly. The drone which found
her about fifty years after the ship vanished, recorded her slowly ballistic,
away from the jump point. She will still be on that line, assuming it didn’t
intersect with something solid."

"Exactly how do you expect me to be
able to help salvage her, if all previous missions have failed?"

Magnus looked at Carter, who blushed.

"I've been told about your new
shields. The media hinted you had them, and when I bumped into Carter, she explained
them to me."

I shot a frown at Carter, who wilted. She
was supposed to be a doctor, and doctors were supposed to be good at keeping
secrets. Magnus went on.

"Shields which can protect a ship
within the corona of a sun, are just what we need. We've been experimenting
with new shields for a long time, and the explorer ship was off to test the
latest ones when it was captured. What I’d like to do is merge your new shields
with ours, and see if this will protect us in the great blockage."

At that moment, Jack came in.

"You wanted me Admiral?"

I motioned all of them to the conference
table, and moved there myself. I looked at Jack.

"Colonel, you mentioned a Pirate base
to me. Can you tell me where it is?"

"Not precisely. But it's somewhere
around the Libya system."

I pulled up the nav map, and zoomed in on
Libya, which was very close to the core end of the spine.

"How do you know?"

"I was chasing a pirate Destroyer,
until it up and vanished on me."

"Unknown jump point?" speculated
Jane through my PC.

"Could be," I responded the same
way.

"You mentioned a Base and a Shipyard?
How do you know about them?"

"Joining the dots mostly. Hints and
observations. Has to be a base there somewhere. And new ships have been
appearing for decades, coming up the spine. Therefore, has to be a Shipyard
there somewhere too."

"A big one too," I added. He
looked me the question. "One of the Battleships we took in Barnard's Star
was brand spanking new. I enquired after, and Earth hasn’t built a Battleship
for several decades, and none of the sectors core-ward have one. So it makes
sense the pirates have a Shipyard big enough to build battlewagons."

"Now you're interested!"

Magnus had a grin on her face.

"Jane?"

"Admiral?"

"Crunch the numbers. Can we take a
Base and Shipyard somewhere around the Libya system, and salvage Prometheus,
and still get home with time to spare?"

There was a moment's silence.

"Yes. But…"

"Always a but. Hit me with it."

"We'll need to run at almost full
speed all the way there, not linger anywhere, and speed run the entire spine
home. Should get us there a couple of days before the Door opens."

"That’s too tight. It could take as
long as a full day to take the stations. Or longer."

"Why sir?" asked Jack.

"The last one we took from pirates had
so much shielding we had to use subterfuge to get on board and take the shields
down, before we could engage the defenses. If they can build a battler, they
most likely have several. Behind the station shields, they would be
untouchable. We could batter on them for days and not take them."

"So we need a Trojan horse." He
grinned at me.

"Elaborate."

He looked hard at the nav map, which Jane
popped up from his request. His finger pointed at three places.

"These look good for being pirates.
All we need is one of them, take it back to their base, impersonate the crew,
give them something like my captured team as bait for letting us dock, and we
got them."

"Sounds like a plan Colonel. Bounce it
off General Smith and the team leaders, and see if you can make it solid."

"Yes sir."

He left with a smile on his face, and a
spring in his step.

"Does that mean you'll do it?"
asked Magnus.

I sighed.

"Yes, it means we'll do it. But let's
be clear. You get the data, and any remains we find. I get the ship.
Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"Was that recorded Jane?"

"Affirmative."

"Do you need anything before we
leave?" I asked Magnus.

"No. I brought everything with me
assuming you would want to go at once."

"Fine. Jane, quarters for Dr.
Magnus."

"Confirmed."

Magnus left with Carter, the two of them
whispering together like school girls.

I frowned. In spite of the advantage of
being able to salvage the other Explorer ship, this didn’t give me a good
feeling.

"Is there anyone still around with a
claim on Prometheus?"

"Not legally. The entity which built
her is long gone. Earth sector might try to claim her as a historical relic
though."

If we pulled this off, I wasn’t going to
give them the chance to.

"Whisper in Melissa and Grace's ears,
and have them launch Lightning's and blaze our trail. We won't be far behind
them, and we won't be stopping at the jump points for anything. Get us moving.
Light em all up."

"Confirmed."

The hollo ended. I buried my head in my
pillow again, and went to sleep.

I dreamt of riding through space, left leg
on the right flight pod of Enterprise, and right leg on the left flight pod of
Prometheus, arms outstretched, laughing at the cosmos. We disappeared down a
light tunnel with darkness all around.

Oddly, I awoke feeling a lot better.
Something about the dream had broken my dark mood, and instilled some
enthusiasm into the missions. Aline stirred next to me, but Angel was the first
to get up, jumping off in search of breakfast. We made it to training on time,
and I threw myself into the assault courses in a way I hadn't done for a while
now. After a light breakfast, I headed for the Bridge. Like I’d done hundreds
of times before, I plumped down in my chair.

MEOW!

I jumped forwards, and Angel jumped sideways.
Jane started laughing. Angel looked at me accusingly, and leapt back up onto my
chair.

"What's this sitting in my chair
business?" I asked her.

She didn’t answer, but started to curl up
to go to sleep again. Instead, I scooped her up and deposited her on her cat
pad on the console. She looked at me disgustedly, but sat.

"My chair," I said, pointing from
me to the chair.

"Cat mat for cat," I said
pointing from Angel to her pad.

Angel shook her head vigorously, and turned
to face the view, ignoring me. I sat again.

Jane was still laughing. I ignored her, and
pulled out my pad, looking for anything first thing in the morning important.
There wasn’t anything, so I put it away again.

"Sitrep," I finally barked.

"Now in the Delhi system. Beijing was
clear. Next possible target is in Nepal, but should be jumping in here shortly.
The Lightning's are on this side of the jump point, and will jump out as soon
as it jumps in."

"Ship class?"

"Cruiser."

I brought up the fire controls for
BigMother, and made some adjustments. Want something done properly? Do it
yourself. I was going to.

Footsteps alerted me to arrivals on the
Bridge. Annabelle took her chair in the XO's position, and Jack sat down in the
Coms chair. I guess this meant they'd decided the Coms position was now second
officer position. This seemed to be borne out by Abigail, our com tech, going
straight to the vacant helm position, which Grace usually occupied. The Bridge
filled up around me, as I kept making preparations. When I was ready, I brought
up a hollo screen only I could see, and ran a simulation of attacking a
Cruiser. I did it again four times to make sure.

"Pirate," said Jane suddenly.
"The Cruiser is a pirate. She's the Unapologizing. Lightnings have jumped.
The comsat was destroyed prior to the Cruiser jumping in. They should have coms
with whoever else they have up spine, but probably haven’t noticed they have no
connection with down spine. Yet."

"How long to intercept?"

"Thirty minutes, assuming they don’t
turn and run."

I looked to Jack.

"I'm changing the ball game this time
Colonel. I'm going to lay BigMother up alongside one of their airlocks as soon
as I have the shields down. Jane will jump a combat suit across to force a way
in. You take team's one and six after her. Have the other teams standing by to
follow you. You'll be using the front airlock on the Cargo Deck."

His mouth was hanging open by the time I'd
finished, but the alpha team were all grinning.

"Yes sir," he said finally.

He stood, and waved rearwards. Most of
those present, rose as well, and trooped out. As soon as the last of them were
gone, Annabelle started chuckling. I gave her a raised eyebrow.

"Jack was saying this morning he
thought he was getting the hang of you. Apparently not."

I joined in with her chuckle. Jane received
some instructions as soon as my chuckle downgraded to a smile.

Twenty five minutes passed quickly.

"Buckle up for combat," I said
into ship coms, and buckled myself up. Those remaining, which included Carter
and Magnus, did the same.

I opened a channel to Unapologizing.

"Stand and deliver!"

"Fuck off!" said a voice, and the
channel closed.

"Charming," said Amy.

I eased up on our speed, and nodded to
Jane. The engines of the other ships turned off, leaving us decelerating to
BigMother's normal, solo, cruising speed.

I brought up the combat systems for real
this time, and sighted in on the Cruiser approaching us. We came within
Battleship gun range, and I squeezed the trigger once. Three big guns fired
from Unassailable beneath us. The pulses sped away from us. I slowed us down
even more, and rolled us into the same plane as the Cruiser. We were not quite
head to head.

The pulses mostly blew down her shields, which
is why I’d only selected three guns, but they started to regenerate
immediately. I changed guns.

The question now was, did her captain want
to play chicken or not. I fired again, this time with three Cruiser guns. Her
shields went down fully this time, and she reacted by firing her own forward
facing guns, before beginning a full speed turn away. I fired again as I brought
us around to follow her turn. My shots missed, but this was what I wanted, to
scare her into running. I pulled our speed right down, and brought us in on a
line to come up behind the Cruiser. Her shots bounced off our augmented shields
without doing any noticeable damage to them. I couldn't launch any of our
externally docked ships, but the tradeoff in extra shielding was worth it.

I fired again, this time at a much closer
range, and their shields went down again. The Cruiser changed direction, this
time heading for the jump point as fast as they could go. I crept us up to
them, slowly but surely. I changed guns again, and as their shields started to
come up again, I blew them down with Destroyer guns.

"Stand by, Colonel," I said into
team coms.

I heard him giving orders in the
background. The external airlock on the front of the ship opened, and I had a
pop up view of team six waiting inside with one of Jane's combat suits. Six
were all in brand new combat suits, which I knew they were eager to try out for
real. Their chance was rapidly approaching.

I tweaked our course slightly to the side
of the Cruiser's, and rolled us onto our side in relation to her, effectively
bringing her above us, while we were on her side.

"Stay still, stay still," I
murmured, as we started creeping up the hull of the other ship.

My eyes were darting across screens in a
regular pattern. Front airlock, HUD, hull cam viewing the Cruiser's hull,
shields on the Cruiser indicator.

"Damn," I said to myself, as the
Cruiser started to regenerate shields again.

I rapidly reselected several topside
Corvette guns, fired, and their shields were down again.

The position I wanted was just ahead now,
and I angled us up towards the Cruiser. Gently, gently. I dropped our topside
shield, hoping I'd not left it too late.

"Jane!"

"Confirmed."

There was a slight shudder through the hull
as ours came into contact with theirs. Between the two was the grav sled of a
salvage droid, joining us together. I nodded to Jane and she took over control,
in order that we match speed with the Cruiser if they tried to shake us off,
but also to add some drag to the other ship so we slowed. It was something
which needed precise calculation to do. I reconfigured our shields to surround
both ships, and set them back to normal strength. At my next nod, Jane began to
uncouple the linked smaller ships, which she could now do without needing to
lower the whole shield first.

"Colonel, go."

"Gone," he replied.

And I could see they were already on the
move, jumping towards the side airlock of the Cruiser.

"That’s bloody terrible parking,"
laughed Annabelle, and the others laughed with her.

"True," I admitted. "But
with what we have on the topside of the hull, lying flat against her was never
an option. We don’t need any better either. I just needed to get the teams
close."

Jane was inside the enemy airlock now. Cam
from her suit was showing her finger at a data port. The outer doors opened,
and team six entered. Jane followed, moving to the inner controls.

Team one was already cycling through into
space, and moving after team six.

"How did team six get to go
first?" I asked Annabelle.

"Amanda and Sam tossed for it. Sam
won. BA was not happy."

I chuckled.

Our speed was slowing, as the Cruiser felt
the extra drag of a ship considerably larger than it was, massing far more than
her engines were designed for.

Behind team one, some of the crew of Homer
were now crossing over to the Cruiser. Homer's engineer's first job was
stopping the Cruiser's engines before they burnt out under the strain of
dragging both ships. Half of team six were heading there first, the other half
towards the Bridge. Jane was heading for the computer room, with BA and Aline's
squad, while the twins and the rest of the team followed towards the Bridge.
Whoever gained control first, was to stop the Cruiser's engines.

The orders were to stun, rather than kill.
If possible, we wanted someone to fill in the gaps on where their base was
located.

Cam views popped up as the teams went their
different ways through the ship. The pirates had no answer to combat suited Gatling
stunners, and went down before the teams without putting up much of a fight.

The Cruiser came to a stop suddenly. No-one
bragged about who had done the deed. These were professionals, and I wasn’t
going to ask.

"Ouch," said Jane. She saw us
turn to look at her, and went on, "The salvage droid just took the strain
of BigMother for a split second as the Cruiser stopped. I'm afraid it's going
to need a lot of work."

"We still connected?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Not that it really mattered. Bringing us
together had mainly been about stopping the Cruiser regenerating shields while
we boarded. By putting ours around the Cruiser as one big joined ship, their
emitters wouldn't engage. Sometimes safety features worked in your favour.

We watched cams as the teams slowly swept
through the entire ship. Finally the word came back. The ship was ours.

I ordered the airlocks closed, and the
Unapologizing to be docked to BigMother's front airlock. Once she was, we
transferred our still stunned prisoners to the brig, and everyone left the
ship. Jane now moved the ship to dock alongside the right Guardian. Once
complete, BigMother looked symmetrical again, as Unapologizing balanced Homer
on the other side.

Once docking was complete, Jane moved us
again, firing all the engines to bring us back up to near top speed.

Annabelle took herself off to debrief the
teams.

I settled into my Ready Room.

A good morning's work was complete. I did
some math, and told Jane to slow us slightly, so we'd be entering the Libya
system at six the next morning. Speed was of the essence, but Libya was
effectively enemy territory, and I wanted us in day mode and fully rested when
we jumped in.