I groaned to myself.
"Rear Admiral Hunter, front and center please," Alsop went on.
I moved to stand in front of Vonda and braced.
"For outstanding leadership in the recent battle," said Vonda, "For tactical brilliance considered above the normal for a Rear Admiral, and because we bloody well want to do it to you…" There were grins and short chuckles all around the room. "…you are hereby promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral. Congratulations."
She held her hand out, and we shook.
As people started to move towards me, Alsop bellowed, "Remain at attention please." The room braced again.
Predictably, a screen popped up on the wall behind Vonda.
Admiral Jedburgh appeared.
"Rear Admiral Hunter. On the advice of General Wellington, and with the knowledge that you've already been promoted by the SFSF, you are hereby promoted to Vice Admiral. Congratulations. As the ASF doesn't currently have a billet for a Vice Admiral, you are being placed on the Inactive List, effective immediately. As this won't affect your current role in the war campaign, we see no problem doing this."
"We're in the process of removing our debris wall from the Midgard jump point. We expect to be able to jump into Midgard to support you, around seven in the morning. Please let us know your timetable, as soon as your plans are complete. Jedburgh out."
The Admiral vanished and was immediately replaced by General Harriman.
"Rear Admiral Hunter. You are hereby promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral, and remain on the Inactive List. Congratulations. We'll talk about Hunter Security's ongoing role in sector security, when you return. Harriman out."
The screen vanished.
Alsop pulsed me new insignia, and I made the changes to my uniforms while being hugged and hand shaken.
I felt like things had moved from the sublime to the ridiculous. And I was so tired by this time, I didn’t really care.
Vonda, Annabelle, and Alsop followed me to my Ready Room.
We spent half an hour going over the plan for our arrival on Azgard. They left to join everyone in the Dining Room for dinner.
I stayed long enough to do a vid of my new epaulettes, and send a brief message to Miriam, so she'd find out from me this time. I followed the others down to the Dining Room.
After dinner, preparations began. I moved back to my chair on the Bridge. Angel crawled up my leg, and went to sleep on my lap.
As soon as we arrived at Azgard, Slice deployed a comnavsat. We used it to scan the surface of the planet, finding a similar compound down there, as had been on Cobol. An entire fleet of six Cruisers and fifteen squadrons of fighters was landed there.
The Orbital station was gone. There wasn’t even any debris in orbit. Jane found an impact crater on the southern continent, about the size a station would make falling out of orbit.
The team and all the troops, moved to Custer. Vonda and Alsop went with them. Lacey again took Custer's pilot's chair.
Slice remained in his Apricot One, and undocked from Custer.
George moved to Gunbus, Annette to Unthinkable, and Eric to Camel. The senior 266 pilot went to the other Camel. The other three pilots took their places in the cockpits of the Dropships.
They all undocked. The Corvettes went in first, to deal with the fleet.
I fell asleep in my chair.
Thirty Eight
"Wake up Jon," said Alison.
I jerked in my seat, wondering why my vision was full of purple smoke. There wasn’t any of course, I’d been dreaming again.
"What time is it?" I asked.
"Ten forty five," she said.
I'd been asleep for three and a quarter hours. It hadn't been enough. All the same, it was too long sleeping in a chair. I slurped from the water bottle I found in the chair's holder. I splashed a little on my face as well, to help me wake up. Jeeves handed me a towel before I could use my sleeve.
"Why are you here?" I eventually said to Alison.
"It was a choice of be useless on Custer, or be useless here. I'm still not well enough to rejoin the team in a ball match, let alone combat. I chose to stay with you."
"Custer was the safer choice."
"Maybe, but if its check out time, I'm happy going with you."
She pecked me on the cheek, before sitting in the helm position.
"Angel," she called.
There was a flash of white, and Angel was back in her place on the console. Instead of sliding past as she usually did, this time she leapt from the top of the ramp onto her pad. She sat there looking proud of herself.
"Sitrep Jane."
"We're approaching the Midgard jump point. The Midgard fleet on Azgard was destroyed without too much difficulty, but fighting is still happening on the ground. It turned out they had a major ground force in place. The last report was our forces were making progress, even though vastly outnumbered. The Midgard soldiers have no counter to the combat suits, so we've a technological edge on them. Just not enough combat suits to get the job done rapidly. For now, we need to ensure the Midgard troops aren't reinforced."
"What's our status here?"
"Nothing has come through the jump point since the fleet came into scanner range. There was no picket force, so we have to assume they're waiting for us on the other side again."
Channels opened from Repulse and John Wayne. O'Neil and Bentley appeared on com screens side by side.
"Welcome to the jump point, Vice Admiral," said Susan Bentley.
I now outranked her properly, not just through an appointment.
"Are we ready to go in?"
"Yes sir," they both replied.
"Let's form up the same way we did last time. If they've the same formation waiting for us, we can follow the comnavsat straight in."
"Is that wise sir?" asked O'Neil.
"Won't know until we send the comnavsat in."
They both nodded.
It took us half an hour to reposition the ships into the same configuration as our jump into Azgard.
When we were ready, I nodded to Jane. A salvage droid popped out of the forward airlock, headed into the jump point, and jumped.
The scan map already up on the main screen increased in size to include the new data. For thirty seconds we had telemetry, and abruptly it vanished. The yellow dot which hit it, had come from a cloud of red dots. There had been just the one, so it was most likely an IR.
The last frame was now on the screen, and I pulled it into three dimensions.
"Damn," I said.
"What's wrong?" asked Alison.
"The commanders keep getting smarter. This one has the same formations as last time, but instead of being opposite each other, they're ninety degrees around. Same forty eight Cruiser configuration, but much better positioned. No chance of them hitting their own ships with missiles which miss. They also look one second further out."
I opened channels and started giving orders. This was going to be harder, but it was still doable.
A half hour later, we were ready to go. We looked even stranger now. Half the Guardians were standing on their rear ends this time, so half faced left, and the other half upwards.
I waited another seven minutes for randomness.
We jumped.
Once again, one second after jumping, every capital ship missile launcher we had, belched a missile. At the same time, the Hive fighters crammed into each of twelve launch tubes down the left side of BigMother, spat four torpedoes each, as fast as they could fire. On the right side, the Hive fighters had been repositioned to cling to the side hull, facing upwards, and they too fired four torpedoes each. Again, every capital ship turret that could, fired on a target not receiving missiles or torpedoes.
For four long seconds, nothing happened.
Once again, almost together, forty two Missile Cruisers exploded.
"Yes!" I exclaimed. I’d been more worried about the calculations for this one.
Six seconds.
Six missile barra
ges appeared from the last six ships, and twenty Mosquito launchers belched a response.
Eight seconds.
Mosquitos met capital ship missiles and annihilated each other.
Nine seconds.
Our second salvo of missiles spat towards the remaining Cruisers.
Thirteen seconds.
The last six Missile Cruisers exploded. The Mosquito launchers fired again.
Every Point Defense turret we had which could come to bear on the Talon cloud in front of us, aimed at the anti-fighter missiles now coming at us. Every anti-fighter missile launcher we had, started spewing out FF missiles as fast as they could.
Twenty seconds.
The Mosquito launchers fired a third time.
Thirty seconds.
The first wall of missiles from the Talons exploded against our Point Defense. Our shield started taking hits.
Thirty three seconds.
FF missiles started hitting Talons, and the red dots began to wink out. The Mosquito launchers fired again.
Forty seconds.
The second wall of missiles coming at us started exploding.
Fifty seconds.
There was no third coordinated missile launch.
"Bring our smaller ships."
Jane sent the signal. The remainder of our ships started jumping in behind us. The combined capital ship continued forward into the rapidly thinning cloud of fighters.
One minute thirty.
Grey dots had overtaken red dots as the primary colour on the nav map.
One minute fifty.
The last red dot winked out.
"Separate."
Each ship attached to BigMother disconnected, and moved away to a safe distance.
"Picket at five, Commodore."
"Yes sir."
The PB's moved off.
"That went well," said Alison.
I grinned at her, but didn’t answer.
"Deploy the salvage droids, clear the down jump area, and collect salvageable hulls. Then full clearance."
"Confirmed."
"Midnight snack?" I asked Alison.
"Contact," said Jane. "That's strange, it's very close to us."
"How close?" I asked.
"Now it's gone."
"Where was it?"
She highlighted a position.
It was very close. Almost like…
It had always bugged me how the Americans had been ambushed here. We should've had ample warning of any fleet approaching, and yet they'd simply appeared on the nav map seconds before firing. Only the distance had allowed them to prepare enough of a limited response to survive the first attack. But at the time, I'd been preoccupied with the station, and had forgotten about it. Later, it had bugged me, but we were well on the way to Cobol by then, and I'd had sleep on my mind instead.
"Jane, what's wrong with this picture?"
"Nav range appears to be less than ten percent of what it should be."
"Why?"
"Unknown."
"Is it system wide?"
"Unknown, but entirely possible. Although if it is, it can't be the same all through the system. We had a lot more range over by the other jump point. Although, it wasn’t as good as it should've been there either. However, this would explain why we never detected their shipyard."
"Could we be in some sort of nebulae we don’t have the tech to detect? The effect on the scanner varying according to how dense it is in any location?"
"It's as good a theory as any."
"How come we didn’t notice this before? We spent a lot of time here after all."
"This time was a dead giveaway something was wrong. Before, we didn’t have any reason to suspect there was a problem."
"Follow that ship, let's see where it came from, or where it's going."
"Confirmed."
I opened a channel to Repulse.
"Admiral Bentley, we're following a contact we detected a minute ago. Deploy the fleet to prevent any access to this jump point from any direction."
"Yes sir."
She started giving orders, and I closed the channel.
We were moving off at an angle from the direction to the planet Midgard.
"Launch the Hives," I said on a hunch. "Let's have them flying escort all around us."
"Confirmed."
"What's going on Jon?" asked Alison.
"With luck, we're about to discover the elusive shipyard."
I grinned at her.
"What if it's really well guarded, or they're in the process of launching a new fleet?"
"Then I guess we hear the fat lady singing." I kept grinned at her. She looked at me steadily. "We run back to our fleet. We're faster than they are."
"Contact," said Jane.
"Slow us down to matching speed. Try not to spook them."
Alison laughed this time.
"Try not to spook mode engaged," said Jane deadpan.
Alison nearly fell out of her chair. Abruptly, she stopped laughing, and put hands over her wound.
"Ouch," she said. "Shouldn’t have done that. Jeeves!"
Jeeves was in within seconds, and gave her a pain shot. He disappeared just as quickly.
"Stop making me laugh Jon. I still hurt."
"I do too, but it’s just a dull ache now."
"Swap you."
"No thanks."
She pouted, and I had to laugh this time.
I opened a vid.
"Admirals. We're in the Midgard system, and have control of the Azgard jump point. I would advise against jumping in from Miami, without first determining the force you'll face. There was another forty eight Cruiser fleet here, in a different formation to last time. The outcome was much the same, but had we assumed the formation was the same and simply jumped in, half our assault would have missed, and we would have been hard pressed to avoid serious casualties. They again responded six seconds after we jumped, so unless you can hit them with a killing blow before they can fire barrages, you'll be in serious trouble."
"I recommend you hold off any plans to enter Midgard, until I can arrive at the jump point in force. If I create a distraction, it gives you the chance to jump in without being an immediate target, and be able to play to the strengths of the Gunbus and Excalibur. See if you can attach all the ships you want to jump in together, so they jump as a single ship. Just be mindful they have to separate in a hurry, and all need a clear vector, that takes them to a target."
"On another matter, there's something seriously wrong with this system. It bothered me at the time when both jump points were attacked with so little warning. I'm afraid to say, I was distracted away from thinking about it. We just discovered a contact very close to us, which simply appeared and disappeared on our scanner. The only theory we have at this point, is the system is within some sort of nebulae, which our current tech cannot detect, which renders our scanners to short range only, and variable according to the density of the nebulae. Not having any traffic through the system before, failed to highlight there was any problem, so we didn’t notice it. And given this is a back route, there probably never has been enough traffic here for anyone to notice a scanner problem. We're tailing the contact, and will report back when we find where it's going, which isn’t the planet. Hunter out."
I sent this vid only to the two American Admirals.
"Hives deployed," said Jane.
"Midnight snack?" I suggested to Alison again.
Thirty Nine
About an hour later, Jane called us back to the Bridge. BigMother was stopped.
There was a single black dot on the scanner, showing a station ahead.
"Look," said Jane.
We could see it in the front view. The station was huge!
"What is it Jane?" I asked.
"The missing shipyard."
The screen zoomed in on one section, showing Cruiser sized enclosed build bays, similar to what I’d seen at Dallas and Avon.
"Jackpot," I exclaimed. Alison smiled at m
e. "How many build bays does it have?"
"Thirty two Cruiser sized ones. Twelve fighter size."
"That explains how they're building so fast."
Another dot appeared on the scanner. It was civilian blue. I looked it up. Medium freighter, and not on a course for the planet Midgard.
"Make a note of that ship's course Jane. We'll have to check that out as well."
"Confirmed."
"Jane, what's the best way…"
My brain caught up with my mouth. No, I thought. No, no, no.
"Jon?"
Both her avatar and Alison were looking at me.
"There's that look Alsop hates," said Alison.
"Jane," I said, pausing. "What sort of computer would they need to run a station that big?"
"To be turning out fleets as fast as they are, there must be a reasonable amount of automation being used. That dictates a reasonably up to date computer system driving it all. The logistics alone would be beyond a manual system to cope with."
"Life signs?"
"Nine thousand twenty seven."
Alison gasped. That was much higher than I'd expected as well.
"Let me guess, the next fleet of Cruisers is nearly completed?"
"Confirmed. Less than an hour away I would estimate. There are four squadrons of Talons docked in a fighter bay, in the main hub."
The blue dot vanished from the scanner. It was just us and the shipyard.
"Can you take over the computer Jane?"
"Not at this range."
"Take us in until you can. And let's hope no-one sees us."
Two minutes later, Jane stopped us again. There had been no signs of alarm yet.
"Confirmed. Full cloning achieved. New AI is named Janine."
"Welcome Janine."
"This is strange," said a female voice. "I was BigMother, now I'm a station? WooHoo. I'm a really big station! Hello Jon. Hello Alison. Hello sister."
We all said hello back.
"Janine, do you have control of the life support system?"
"No, sorry. It's completely manually run."
"Airlocks?"
"Yes."
"Can you understand the language they're using?"
"Wait."
It took ten minutes.
"Language assimilated."
"Do they have a self-destruct protocol?"
Make or Break the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 4) Page 20