Hero at Large_Second Edition

by Timothy Ellis

  The next thing I did was look up the purchase list. Most of it was easily obtainable. A few were not. For the first time, I went onto the local exchange market, and checked out prices and availability. While I wasn't yet ready to buy, I wanted to know what I was doing, and if anything was not available. It seemed Wanderer was how Gaia received specialty goods which we couldn't make ourselves, and covered this by purchases for Outback Orbital, which consumed the bulk of the space. Wanderer also took back the latest in books, hollo's, music, and other entertainment.

  I also checked on the price of space-worthy containers. It occurred to me I was in a position to supply a lot more than Outback normally could afford to buy, and while most of it would not get down to the planet for a year, at least it would be on the Orbital waiting, regardless of what I was doing at that time. While I hoped to get back to Outback and Gaia in a year's time, who knew what tomorrow was going to bring?

  However, there was no point in doing anything, until I could safely get Wanderer and a cargo to Outback. At the moment, it was problematical at best. Hopefully the new ship would prove to be the difference in convincing the pirates to leave me alone. A part of me didn't think so, but I could only hope. The alternative wasn't something I wanted to think about.

  Emails took up time as usual. We had a light lunch, and went to the Mercenary Guild gun range again. Amanda showed me where to borrow some long guns, and I spent some time trying them out. After some practice, I was tested at various ranges. It was a good start, and once again I scored in the late seventies. We took several of the assault courses, and I had a minor improvement over the previous scores. All I really needed was practice. I needed to schedule some time most days in order to get better scores. But it depended on what I was doing, and I didn't know yet.

  Back at the hotel late in the afternoon, I finally went into the bedroom. It had been cleaned, but on the bedside table I found a little pile of buttons. When I looked at the shirt hanging on the cleaner section of the robe, I found it had none. It seemed Alison really had torn my clothes off last night, quite literally. I had a good chuckle, put shirt and buttons in a hotel bag for mending, hung it outside the suite door, and pinged hotel services to collect it.

  Thinking about the hotel, it occurred to me I'd taken advantage of the hotel for long enough, and probably too long. Given I expected to have my own ship to sleep on the next evening, I pinged the hotel to expect me to check out in the morning. I let Amanda know as well. Having made the decision, I packed both travel sleds, leaving out only a shirt for the next day. This included my Uncle's gear, but I wasn't ready for looking at any of it yet, I just packed it.

  Dinner was a quiet affair in the suite. Alison and Aleesha turned up together. I started by telling them their bodyguard duties would formally end in the morning, once they delivered me to my ship, freeing them up for whatever next job the Colonel organized for them. I didn't know what I would be doing after, beyond a test flight, but assuming I was around, and they were free, I wanted to see all of them again as much as possible, as I valued our friendship.

  I know they considered themselves under some obligation to me still, but I tried to dispel it, and move us on to being good friends instead. We already were, but there was still a 'client' barrier there, which I wanted to remove. They took it well, and maybe they even anticipated it. The rest of dinner was all small talk, and just enjoying good company.

  After clearing away, I was surprised when Alison took Amanda's normal chair, and went blank the way Amanda and Aleesha normally did. I looked from her to the twins. They looked at me with identical grins. They both left the sitting room, leaving me wondering what was going on. But not for long. An "Oi" sounded, and so I headed into the bedroom to see what they were up to.

  Both of them were standing beside the bed. I stopped just inside the door. Amanda motioned me to close it. I did. Then as I watched, both of their suits, in exquisite slow motion, rolled back into their normal belts, leaving them in just their skimpy underwear. They both did something unexpected. They took their belts off.

  Both together, they slid their tops off, and then their briefs, leaving them standing in front of me in identical nakedness. I'd seen them like this before, but this was really different, and much more provocative. A pop-up asked me if I really wanted the override, and I answered it with a no.

  Immediately, my jeans started getting tighter. Moving both together, the twins came over to me, pulled me over to the bed, and slowly took my clothes off. At that point, all restraint ended.

  Twenty Seven

  I was sitting in my command chair, in space.

  No ship, no life support, no nothing.

  Just me, in my chair, in space.

  Two identical women stood behind me.

  Another woman stood behind them.

  Space around me was not familiar.

  As I looked around I saw no planets.

  There were many asteroid fields.

  In the distance, two gas giants.

  A movement in front of me caught my eye.

  A black dot had appeared at long range.

  As I watched, another dot appeared.

  Then another.

  Then ten, a hundred, a thousand.

  Space in front of me turned black.

  The three of us bolted upright in bed at the same time.

  For the first time I'd gone to bed with both of the twins.

  For the first time, I'd woken up with both of the twins.

  I looked at them, they looked at me. I could see it in their eyes.

  For the first time, all three of us had experienced the same dream, at the same time.

  I thumped back down onto my pillow, a very real sense of dread casting a pall over me.

  "Did we…" started Amanda.

  "Yes," I broke in.

  "The same dream?" asked Aleesha.

  "How many behind the chair?" I asked.

  "Three," they both replied.

  "Alison," we all said together.

  As if at the mention of her name, Alison poked her head around the corner.

  "What just happened?" she asked. "I felt very scared all of a sudden, with no reason why."

  She came in.

  "All three of us just had the same dream. And you were in it with us," I answered.

  "What does it mean?" All three of them said it together.

  "I don't know. But I think all of you need to plan on going home with me in a year's time. If anyone knows why we're having the same dream, the Keepers will. And this time I see them, they will be giving me some answers."

  I meant it too. There would be no vagueness or evasions this time.

  "Why can't we go see them now?" asked Alison.

  "Outback is isolationist. For only five days each year, people can come and go from the planet. The window closed while I was in the hospital. Anyone who tried to go there now would be shot down. There are no exceptions. And they ignore all attempts to communicate. Those of us who don't make it back in time, have to live on the Orbital, or find somewhere else."

  It was the truth, just not the whole truth.

  "Oh."

  That did sort of sum things up.

  "So what do we do?" asked Aleesha

  "Shower," said Amanda, and we all laughed.

  We went through our shower routine. Amanda, Aleesha, and also Alison sharing it with me. I felt like something was coming to an end, as I stood there alone letting the water flow over my lessening bruises. The pall of the dream was still over me, and I had a strong pull to go back to bed, pull the covers over my head, and stay there all day.

  A ping came in to say the shuttle was approaching the station. I reluctantly left the shower, dressed, and retrieved my mended shirt from the outside door of the suite, placing it in the travel sled, ready to go.

  The ladies finished breakfast while I checked emails. As they were finishing, I put both guns and extras on, put the chargers in a grav sled, and we went to check out. Nothing to pay, nothing
to thumbprint, good voyaging to you sir.

  We set out for the shuttle dock. The sleds followed along behind me. The four of us must have made an imposing sight striding along, because people stopped to watch us pass. At the dock, we boarded the shuttle, and the pilot took us across to the shipyard.

  Bob met us, and showed the way to a landing bay.

  "Behold, Excalibur," said Bob, a little over-dramatically.

  I stopped and looked, taking in the sleek lines, wings, and guns. She was a beautiful thing to behold. Talking of which, I turned to the ladies arrayed around me.

  "Thank you," I said to all of them. "You taught me to walk. Time for me to see if I can fly on my own."

  I kissed and hugged each of them in turn.

  "I'll ping you when I'm back at the station. This might be a short test flight, might take all day, or I might get to Outback and back before I see you again. We'll have to wait and see."

  I smiled at them, turned to Bob, nodded, walked to the underside of the ship, and began a complete walk around, using a check list Bob pulsed me. Completed, we started up the stairs.

  I paused at the top, looking back to the entrance to the bay, but the ladies had left. Part of me began to feel lonely. I turned, and went inside the airlock, Bob followed, and we cycled through into the living area.

  Bob showed me through the entire ship. Most of it was cramped, barely more than access ways for repairs. A very tight access-way led into the cargo hold below the cockpit. It was larger than I expected, but still would only take a limited amount of cargo. Part of its space was taken up by a strange looking droid, and several grav sleds. There were also a half dozen other deactivated droids.

  "Salvage Droid," said Bob, pointing to the one by the sleds. "And your security droids," he said, pointing to the others.

  In the power room, there was another droid, also not active.

  "Repair Droid," he said.

  We found another one in the engine room. And yet another in the shield generator room. 'Room' in each case was something of an overstatement. The machinery itself delineated functional areas, and the space between for access and repair was loosely called a room.

  Back on the top deck, we went into the rear turret. There was a seat and controls for a gunner, but it was set up for computer control. It would have a great view once in space, and could swivel to cover most of the space around the ship, except for down through the ship itself. As long as a missile was coming in from above, to the sides or behind, the turret could fire at it. It was up to me as the pilot to turn the ship to make sure it could reach anything coming from below.

  The living space looked comfortable, and was about the size of a standard hotel room. As well as the bed, there was a reasonable sized desk, with a full communications and entertainment system. Behind the desk hung a wall sized flat screen, from which full hollos would be generated on demand.

  There was also a mini kitchen, with cooler, storage space, and basic cooking and cleaning facilities. The fresher was large enough for two people to shower, and had a conventional ship toilet, and wash basin. The robe contained the standard hanging, storage, and cleaning facilities.

  The cockpit was our last stop. I sat down in the pilot's seat, and adjusted it to fit me, including the harness. Bob had pulled out a jump seat partly behind me. He indicated the control console in front of me.

  Flowing around the pilot seat was a console allowing all ship's functions to be positioned where the pilot wanted them. All up it was the size of a large corner workstation. The walls on all three sides were view screens, which doubled as both windows and displays. There was no real visual line between where the control surface ended, and the view screens began, although there had to be.

  Bob indicated a prominent button. I pressed it, and the ship came to life. The view screens came on, showing their default settings. The ship computer pulsed me its interface system, and I pulsed back my overlays and preferences. I started with the HUD, arranging it the way I wanted it around all three screens. I moved on to the console, moving things to where I wanted them. Then I started going through the ship menus one at a time, checking everything, testing everything, bringing up systems, and making sure they worked as they should. Bob sat beside me patiently.

  When I'd finally finished with the menus, I brought up a simulation system, and took the ship for a simulated test flight. I was delighted with it. And said so to Bob. He smiled.

  "One last thing," he said. "AI online".

  "AI is online. What is my designation?"

  A pleasant sounding female voice came from the general direction of the console.

  "Your name is Jane," I said.

  "Thank you. How do I address you?"

  "You call me Jonathon, or Jon."

  "Welcome to Excalibur, Jonathon."

  Jane pulsed me yet another interface. I took the time to go through it, and reviewed all its settings. I turned on the options for Jane to control all droids on board directly. The interface options were extensive. When I was finished, I turned to Bob with a happy smile on my face.

  "Well my boy, what do you think?" he asked.

  "I think I'm going to be very happy with her," I replied.

  "Ready to take formal delivery?"

  "Yes, subject to a successful test flight of course," I responded.

  He chuckled.

  "Of course. Would you like lunch before your flight?" he asked.

  I thought about it for a moment. I agreed with him, and he led the way out. At the bottom of the stairs, I called the two travel sleds over, and guided them up the stairs, and into the living area, where I locked them down until I was ready to unpack things. Then I left the ship, and code locked it shut.

  We enjoyed a light meal in Bob's office, and completed the 'paperwork'. I deeded the five Gladiator's over to him formally in payment. We shook hands as I left his office.

  I walked back to the landing bay feeling quite strange, as if everything was about to change. I stopped, and took another look at my ship from the ground, before walking up the stairs to the airlock, and cycling through. I went straight into the cockpit, strapped myself in, and brought all ships systems online.

  "Excalibur to Shipyard, ready for test flight."

  "Shipyard to Excalibur, standby."

  I could see the stairs disappearing out of the landing bay door. The indicator showing air levels outside diminishing to nothing, and the outer door started to open. I gave the ship enough lift to hover above the ground, and raised the landing struts. Slowly, I turned her to face out the exit doorway.

  "Shipyard to Excalibur, you are cleared for exit, and test flight. Good luck."

  I double checked the distance between the ends of the wings, and the walls on each side. There was not a lot a room. I gave her a minimal amount of forward motion, and slowly the ship slid out of the bay, and into open space. Once clear, I pushed the speed up, and put some distance between me and the Shipyard.

  Once well away, I pushed the thrust lever all the way forward, and the ship leapt forward. I made some changes to the inertial dampers so I could almost not notice the acceleration, but leaving enough feeling so I could feel the ship. Feeling was necessary for good control.

  She went to top speed very quickly, and it was well past a normal fighter's top speed, and about a third higher than the Gladiator. I was impressed. I brought the thrust back down to nothing, and let the ship come to a stop. I set the shields up to full, and the safeties for when she was landed, and where I wanted shields to come on and off automatically when landing or taking off, so as not to damage landing bays. The power indicators showed more than double that of a normal fighter. I set the turret to a primary mode of missile defense, and a secondary mode of protecting the ship from any attacker in the rear.

  I brought up the weapon systems. There were two buttons on the top of the joystick. The right one I assigned to the torpedo launcher, the left one to the missile launcher. I assigned missile selection to a side button, and checked
the load in the launcher. It showed fifty missiles, twenty being Friend or Foe, and the other thirty were Image Recognition's. Likewise, the reload had the same. I selected FF. If I needed to get missiles off in a hurry, I wanted something not needing a lock before going out.

  Next I brought up the gun selector. I assigned quick select options for all six guns, for four guns, and for two guns, the latter two in case I wanted to reduce hitting power for some reason. I also set up quick select options for all the guns firing at once, or all the guns firing one at a time in sequence. The first would give me maximum firepower at one pull of the trigger, with a delay between firings. The second would give me a faster rate of fire, with no delays, but less damage potential. All firing together was good for ships with full shielding, while the Gatling gun effect of the second option would be good for missiles coming towards me, or for a ship I found difficult to hit.

  The next adjustment was for the angle of fire for each gun. I set the guns to all fire at once, and pulled the trigger. Six pulses of red launched forth at equal spaces apart, and continued off into the distance. That wasn't what I wanted. At best, aimed at fighters, only two or three would hit at any time. I adjusted each of them so they were all aimed at a spot two hundred meters in front of the ship. I pressed the trigger, and six red pulses appeared to become one pulse two hundred meters ahead, and separated off into the distance.

  Two hundred meters might seem to be too short, especially considering the speed of fighters in combat. Sure, if you're going head to head. Not so much if you're chasing or circling. Maybe it would be too short, and I'd have to adjust it, but it was what I was used to, back at home on my simulators. I'd also chosen guns which hit better at short range. Had I wanted long range guns, the streaming lasers would have been better suited. Missiles were for long range. Guns were for short, and in my case short meant point blank range! No, if I needed to fight using guns, I'd be in there scratching their paint with the front of my ship, using my fast reflexes, and intuition, for surgical strikes.