"Docking complete," she announced. The screen vanished and the channel closed.
Applause came from around the Bridge.
Jane accelerated us towards the Kansas jump point. BigMother took longer to get up to speed, but our top speed wasn’t affected.
Repulse took up the rear position, but slightly above. I assumed Susan wasn’t game to be behind in case the dock failed. The Guardians took up formation around us as before.
Another screen popped up with a cam image of how we looked from one of the Guardians.
"Now I've officially seen everything," said Jedburgh. "Including the dead coming back to life."
Jane rose, moved to my chair, and swiveled me around to face the rear, ensuring my leg didn't move, by moving the grav chair with me.
"I'm happy to oblige sir," I said.
We were the same rank now, but he had the seniority, and we were in public. Everyone was there I noticed. And the two Commanders from the medal ceremony were sitting off to one side.
It was Annabelle who broke the minutes silence following my response.
"How are you alive Jon? Abagail looked it up. No-one, and I mean absolutely no-one, ever, has come back after fifteen minutes dead, where it didn't involve hypothermia."
"Just lucky I guess," I joked. It went over flat, not even gaining a smile. "How should I know?"
"What did you see Jon?" asked Miriam. "Did you see the light?"
"Light?" I blinked rapidly. "No light. Actually I spent the entire time in my Ready Room."
"That’s not funny," said Alison.
"I'm not joking. I guess you'd call it an out-of-body experience. I was in my Ready Room, watching the girls take me to the hospital on the wall."
"That’s really weird," said Aline. "Even for you."
"You're telling me! I was there, and I don’t know if I believe it or not."
Check.
"Jane, is there anything different in the Ready Room?"
"Affirmative."
"What?"
"The table is damaged. And there are two largish figurines on the damaged end."
"What are they of?"
"Identical to the ones on the console, only bigger."
My head swiveled around to see the figure of Kali sitting on the console out of the way. I smiled.
"What really happened?" asked Amanda.
"I told you. I was in the Ready Room. There were two indistinct figures there with me, and while I watched the wall, we had a conversation."
"Who were they?"
"You wouldn’t believe me if I told you."
"I don’t believe a word of this anyway," said grumpy Commander.
Jedburgh gave him a sharp glance, and he looked down at the floor.
"Was there anything strange about my body while I was, err, away?"
"Actually there was," said Alison. "We couldn't close your eyes. That shouldn’t have been so. Until rigor sets in, the eyes are closeable."
"I wonder," I started.
"Wonder what?" said Miriam.
"I wonder if I wasn’t actually dead."
"You were dead Jon," said Miriam. "It wasn’t an illusion."
The obvious emotion in her voice caused both her bosses to look at her sharply. I guess they didn’t know we were an item.
"I'm not saying it was an illusion, I'm saying I wasn’t actually there."
"That makes no sense at all," said Annabelle.
"It could," said Eric. "But only if you consider science fiction type answers."
"Here we go," said grumpy Commander. I'd forgotten his name.
He received another sharp glance from his boss.
"Commander, your dismissed!" said Jedburgh.
He rose, saluted and quickly left.
"You were saying, ah?" he went on.
"Eric Nielsen sir. Jon was brought up spiritual. His ways and thinking are different from all of us. From what I heard, he may be the first recorded case of actual time travel, as hard as that might be to accept." People looked at him strangely, so he went on quickly. "The point is, strange things happen around him, and too him. Being alive isn’t the only mystifying thing. He should've been vaporized. I did a lot of research on the suits when I first heard about them. One Meson blast will render a normal suit useless. Jon wears three boosters. So in theory, after four Meson blasts, his suit would be useless. I asked about what hit him. They were modified Meson Blasters, designed to stream laser instead of pulse. He was hit with the equivalent of twenty four pulses."
That got people's attention. He went on.
"The combined power directed at him, should've vaporized him. But it didn’t. Jon, what's your suit integrity?"
I checked and told him. While I'd slept, the suit had regenerated.
"That’s impossible," said Alana.
I looked sheepish.
"What did you do?" asked Alison.
"I had a dream about golden streamers and purple smoke."
The twins startled and looked at each other, indicating they'd shared that dream with me.
"What did you do?" demanded Alison.
"I'm wearing three fully boosted suits," I said quietly.
Eric grinned while everyone else looked poleaxed.
"Makes sense," he said. "The combination would be about the same integrity as combat suits offer. That explains no vaporizing. But something else had to have been going on."
I could see it in his eyes. He knew there were holes in that explanation as much as I did, but neither of us wanted to point them out. As much protection as I'd had, it still wasn't enough for what hit me.
"Science fiction?" asked Miriam.
"I can offer two theories, but no-one here is going to buy them."
"I will," I said. I really wanted to hear them too.
The room was still, and dead quiet.
"Well, the first is, at the moment of your death, you were removed from the time stream. Whoever did it, allowed time to go forward before putting you back. At the moment you were back, your medical monitor revived you."
"Doesn’t explain the dead body," said Jedburgh.
"True," agreed Eric. "However that can also be explained several ways. The best of which is a droid with a suit was used to replace him. Explains not being able to close his eyes. If it was a suit, the replication was fixed."
I could see he knew there were big holes in that theory as well, but again didn’t want to explain them.
"But I think something else happened. He could have been removed from time altogether. His body was dead, but HE was somewhere else. Fifteen minutes later, whoever took him, put him back, and as I said, then his medical monitor revived him."
I nodded to him, indicating they sounded like good theories to me.
"I did experience what many call an out-of-body experience," I said. "Doesn’t explain a lot of things, and we'll probably never know exactly what happened. Whatever did happen, I'm just glad to still be here."
Alison and the twins came over and gently hugged me.
Eighteen
Explanations over, I shooed everyone except Lacey, Abagail, and Amy, off the Bridge. Everyone else was free to do whatever they liked for the rest of the day. I promised the Admirals a private lunch in my Dining Room.
I looked at Lacey.
"Fancy taking point, Wing Commander?" I asked him.
"Sir?"
"We need someone to go through the jumps ahead of us, and make sure the jump points are completely clear before we go through."
"Yes sir, I can do that. Do you want me out front the whole way?"
"Whatever suits you. You need to be there for ten this morning, five this afternoon, and midnight. You can dock for the rest of the time if you want. I guess it depends on if you prefer solitude, or a crowd."
"I'm easy with both sir."
"You can delegate if you want to, but I thought a higher rank on the other side of each point would be a good idea in case someone doesn’t want to give way."
"I can see
that. Undock a half hour before, you think sir?"
"That should do it. We'll have to slow before going through, so you'll have time to jump first. Have your AI communicate direct with Jane as to the timing of jumps."
"Will do sir."
He saluted and left.
"What can we do for you sir?" asked Abagail.
I turned to Amy first.
"Amy, can I hire you to do a task for me? Complete and total secrecy?" She stared at me. "I'm serious. You and Abagail have different skills needed to solve a problem I have, and which Australian Security don’t seem to be able to crack."
"What can I do to help you?" she asked.
"Research, and following leads. I need an experienced investigator, and you’re the closest I know."
"Those skills are why I'm such a good journalist."
"I know, I looked you up."
I hadn't. I'd guessed.
"What's the task?"
"Commitment first. I can hire you as a contractor, or outright employ you. Actually come to think of it, having a journalist on staff could be very useful. You could run a PR department for me."
I don’t think she would have been more surprised if I'd levitated to the ceiling. Actually, with the grav chair I could do that now. I chuckled to myself silently.
"Okay," I went on, "how about a contract until we arrive back in Nexus, after which time we can discuss something more permanent. I'll pay whatever your hourly rate is for time you spend on this task."
"Without knowing how long it'll take? You're crazy!"
"Maybe so. Are you in or out?"
"In."
"What's the problem boss?" asked Abagail.
I gave them the whole story about how everywhere I went, there was an email setting up a hit on me, in several cases when I'd only known hours before I was going to be there. I told them about the emails which never arrived. The one from George that arrived two weeks after being sent. And the one from Annabelle she didn’t send.
"A lot of the emails were undoubtedly from the Santiago family, and their history now, so that’s a dead end. But someone still wants me dead, and I'm fresh out of options. It's possible this last hit was just revenge from beyond the grave in case Santiago Senior failed, or a group who never received the message the bounties would never be paid. However, the only trail we have is the emails. And I want them followed to wherever they lead."
I looked them both in the eyes.
"General Harriman told me there were other irregularities that had never been adequately explained, but so far, his people have found nothing. That tells me whoever is behind this, is well connected. So there are two ground rules. First, nothing is stored about this matter, or emailed anywhere, which hasn’t been encrypted by Jane. She does an encryption which only her clones can access. Second, do whatever it takes."
I looked straight at Abagail.
"Whatever it takes!" I restated for her.
She nodded deliberately. We understood each other.
"Amy, find an office you like, and get a butler to put your name on the door. Abigail, you can use the computer room office, or one up here. Whichever suits you. If you need anything from me, just ask."
They both nodded.
"Where do we start?" asked Amy.
"Get all the data we have from Jane. I know Abigail has some of it, but Jane has all of what we've had shared with us so far. I'll email General Harriman for the rest of the data about the emails he knows about. Discuss this with no one, and that includes everyone on this ship. Complete secrecy. Make sure you're not overheard if you're discussing anything to do with this."
"Understood," they said together.
"Time frame?" asked Abagail.
"As long as it takes. Fit the work in around whatever else is going on. And don’t disappear for long enough that people wonder what you're doing. If anyone asks, Amy, you're doing research for your next article, and you better do that for cover anyway," she nodded, "and Abagail, you're doing a computing task for me, which is too complicated for anyone to understand, even if you tried to tell them."
She laughed.
"I won't even need to fake it. I can double bluff anyone, except perhaps you, with computer stuff."
"I'll leave you to it then."
Abagail hesitated as Amy left.
"By the way boss, I don’t know if you noticed, but after you were shot on Avon, I took down your vid from the Guilds. I figured with no bounty out on your head now, there was no message to send anymore. Was that okay?"
"Good idea. I should've thought of it myself."
She smiled, and left.
I did a vid for Walter, asking him for all the email data he had. I was going to investigate it myself, as yet another email was behind the assassination attempt on me the day before. I gave him Abagail's contact details. I requested total secrecy, and for him to use Janet to encrypt all emails from him, from now on. Jane encrypted the email, and I sent it off.
I sat there for a few minutes, feeling trapped in my chair, and doomed to being carried around for the next week or two. The thought of being confined was upsetting.
I pulled up a hollo screen, and went looking for medical aids for the immobilized. I surfed my way through a lot of rubbish sites, until I found one for 'Mobility World'. My grin let loose when I saw their range of products. Where were they? Dallas and Kansas Orbitals were both listed.
"Jane, bring up the small freighter please, you're going shopping. Or at least, send another avatar."
"It has one already. What am I buying?"
I told her.
"Bring the ship up, but don’t launch for the moment."
"Confirmed."
I pinged Annabelle.
"How many combat suits did you get?"
"Just replacements for the team's," she pinged back. "That was their entire stock of top of the range. As Jane's and yours are in the best condition, I opted to replace the team's first."
"No problem. Did you order any more?"
"No, I wasn’t sure I should."
"Okay, I'll put in an order now. Do the team know you bought them?"
"No. They're still in crates on the Cargo Deck somewhere. You should have an invoice to pay somewhere in your emails."
"Don’t you think the team should open their presents now?"
The ping back contained a laugh.
I found the invoice email and paid it.
I thought about ground assaults. I had a professional team, and four hundred and forty eight combat droids. But the droids were lightweights. If we ever came up against a larger team all in combat suits, we were going to be in trouble, droids or not.
"Jane, take the freighter to Kansas Orbital. Buy all the top of the line combat suits available on the station. Up to fifty if they have them. If they'll make the changes for your suit specs, make up another eleven. Do those first, make up the fifty with normal suits after. Get two Pulse Rifles for each suit, and if yours get made up, two Meson Blasters for each. What you can't get on Kansas, have them order for collection on London Orbital. And see if you can get that combat suit backpack for BA, which'll allow her to fire Meson Blasters. If it can be done, get her two Mesons as well. Make sure all suits have arm stunners."
"Confirmed."
BA was bad-arse at the best of times, but with Mesons in each suit hand, she'd be seriously bad-arse. I wondered for a moment if that was what BA actually stood for. I'd always thought it meant bad attitude. But bad-arse fitted her better.
I pinged Amanda and asked.
"Duh!" came back.
I dragged my mind back to shopping.
"Do we have enough charge slots for that number of combat suits?"
"Not on BigMother. But we do between the armoury on Custer and the Marine Barracks armoury."
"Buy the charge slots as well, or what's needed to build them. I think we'll convert a storage bay on the Cargo Deck, nearest one of the side airlocks, into a one hundred charge bay armoury. So buy all the gun charge racks as w
ell. We may as well have a decent central armoury near to where ships can dock and move suits around easily. The one thing which wasn’t practical about how Custer is docked, was moving combat suits around. But she can dock nose in to a side airlock, and the suits then move on the same level. Buy everything we need, and when the freighter returns, get the builder droids onto it. Better make it ultra-secure, since Cargo Deck is open when we dock."
"Confirmed."
A screen popped up showing the freighter launching out the left side Flight Deck. It turned to match the way we were heading, and streaked ahead of us.
"Have you been tweaking that freighter again?"
"Indeed," she said with a chuckle.
"Start thinking about how to do a fast courier ship. Avatar and pilot versions. There's a need to move small things around very fast, and it might be nice if our new shipyard had something to make which people might want. I want one on hand anyway. It would be very useful to have something Gig sized, which could break all the speed records. It wouldn’t need guns if it could outrun missiles, but the usual fixed arrangement on front would be nice as well. And it better have Point Defense anyway, in case something happens when speed isn’t an option. There's Talon hulls in storage you can play with. Design me a new Courier ship. There's a challenge for you."
"Confirmed."
Squeals of delight came wafting up from below.
Nineteen
Just before we reached the jump point, we slowed. Camel and Starman launched, ran ahead of us, and jumped. I guess Greer had been ordered to be point man as well. Made sense though, we were in American space, so American military could order people around better than my people could.
"Feed coming through from Starman," said Jane.
A screen popped up showing a spit screen of Greer and some civilian pilot. The civilian was arguing he didn’t believe there was a fleet coming through. Kansas hadn't seen a fleet in his lifetime, so why would there be one now? In any case, he was here first, he had right of way.
Hail the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 5) Page 10