Down we went, slowly but surely.
At last, with five minutes left, we reached the bottom. I was exhausted now, and inflamed. The only thing I felt was pain. Pain is good I said to myself. It means I'm still alive.
I stood again with no small amount of trouble, and grasped Queen Liz by her right arm, and pulled her along after me as I made my way into the Armoury.
Two minute warning.
The combat suit was on its side, having been thrown out of its charge slot. I connected to it, and powered it up. The back opened. I used my remaining strength to push her Majesty roughly inside as fast as I could. The back closed, and I checked on its life support. Good for five hours. She at least should be rescued. I switched her suit to 'slinky red'.
One minute warning.
I looked around for the air backpacks, but couldn’t see any. There was only the single combat suit in the Armoury, with its Heavy Pulse Rifles, which were still in their charge racks.
Life support failure.
I sat next to the Queen, and let my last few breaths flow through me, stopping the mantra, and simply entering a deeply meditative state.
Give yourself to me.
Kali again. I looked around to see if I was in my Ready Room again, but no. I was gasping my last in the wreckage of Gunbus.
Give yourself to me!
"I give myself to you," I parroted, my eyes losing focus.
My pain stopped.
My breathing stopped.
My heart stopped.
Thirty Two
I burst out of myself as some sort of incorporeal entity, flowed out of the wreckage of the ships, and into space.
I looked around.
Time had stopped. Nothing moved.
Jane was not far off the side of the Battleship. She looked like she was firing her guns behind her, perhaps using their slight recoil as a propellant. I was relieved to see her okay. It might be a droid body and expendable, but she, it, she, was my friend.
I moved to a position where I could see the whole battle site. Four Guardians were visible. All four were damaged, but only one was extensively damaged. There were the hulls of one Cruiser and one Destroyer, both appearing dead.
I looked back at the Battleship. It appeared to be functional. I moved inside and sought out an area where there should be live people. Towards the center, I came across the CCC. Everyone there was down. They looked like they'd been asphyxiated. I continued through the ship and found the same everywhere. Curious. There was no apparent cause of life support failure. There were many damaged areas, but all of them were closed off from the rest of the ship, so no particular hit had caused the crew to die.
I moved out of the ship and headed towards the station. BigMother was a short way away from it. Custer had undocked, and was on her way towards the Battleship. I moved through her, but no-one was aboard. I moved on to BigMother, but only Angel was there, and she was safely in her carry cage, being held next to an air connection point in my suite by one of the butler droids.
The Mercenaries were still flat on the deck just inside the airlock from the Flight Deck. Outside, the captain of the Military Transport wouldn’t be looking up my record after all.
On the station, the battle for Operations was still in progress, but Jane was almost through mopping up. I went back to check BigMother. The docking clamps had been cut, not released. But she hadn't been let loose in time to join the battle.
I headed down to the planet.
Amanda and Aleesha were inside the Palace, blazing away with their combat suit stunners. Pulses hung in the air leaving their guns on a line towards hapless troops. A line of bodies extended behind them, mainly alive, although one had its face smashed in. British troops were spread out through the building. BA and Annabelle were in the Parliament building, with more British troops. I found the other team members scattered across a number of other government buildings, all acting as lead combat suit for at least a platoon of troops.
Bigglesworth was in his office at the Admiralty, firing a gun across the top of his desk, unaware Aline in her combat suit was about to remove his problem for him.
George and the other pilots were at the RAF hangers. They were all down, but appeared to be alive. It made sense to stun all the pilots before you brought in a fleet to attack the planet. Royal Air Force might be an obsolete name for a space travel age, but the name was traditional, and like so much else which was traditionally British, had been retained along with the Monarchy.
I couldn’t help anyone, so I launched myself back up into space.
With nowhere else to go, and no concept of why I was in this form, apparently timeless, I returned to Gunbus. I found Jeeves in my suite, pinned under some debris. I had no way of telling if he was still active or not. I found the Duke of Norfolk still in the remains of the Brig. His body had been torn in half.
I returned to where I'd left my body.
I discovered a figure approaching where I'd left myself. I circled around it, discovering it was a suited man, wearing an air backpack, who looked disturbingly like his pirate-ness. He was carrying a handgun, and it was pointed in my general direction.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I tried to re-enter my body.
Time started up again.
My heart gave a beat.
I took a breath of almost unbreathable air.
Pain smashed at my consciousness.
Thirty Three
My suit generated an air connection and smoothly connected me to the combat suit's external air connection point. In seconds, it regenerated its ability to sustain me for another half hour, and disconnected. It shortened the time Queen Liz could last by that amount, but it kept me alive a bit longer.
I pulled myself back to my feet, and faced towards the oncoming figure.
A channel opened between our suits.
"So boy," he smirked at me. "You're still alive."
"Damn right I am," I responded. "But how are you? Your Bridge crew are dead. Were you the only one to have a suit belt on? Did you run out as soon as you saw the torpedoes coming? So the coward makes sure he lives when his crew are all dead!"
"I took steps to ensure I survived, yes. Anyone in my position would do."
A phrase came to me from an old flat screen.
"I have given a name to my pain, and it is Abbott!"
"What?"
"You heard me arse-hole. I choose to call my pain your name, because that’s all you are. Pain for other people. You’re a parasite on society, and give true parasites a bad name."
His face went bright red, his gun jerked, but before he could fire, I drew my Long Gun and fired first. The shot took him in the forehead, and he went over backwards, his own shot coming nowhere near me. I holstered my gun, and hobbled over to the gun racks, where I pulled a Heavy Pulse Rifle down.
In my weakened condition it was almost too much for me to manage, but I swung the muzzle towards my enemy, and lined him up.
He was just getting up, bringing his gun around at me again.
I fired the Pulse Rifle. The pulse took him in the middle of the chest, and he went flying backwards to crash into the wall behind him.
I hobbled after him, keeping the Pulse Rifle lined up on him. He was struggling to rise from the floor, as the next pulse hit him.
I debated hitting him again. If he had a standard suit belt, one more pulse would probably shred it. If it was boosted, he could take it.
He stirred and fired at me again, the shot taking me in the left arm, and bouncing off harmlessly.
I gave him another pulse. His suit held together, but he passed out. He'd taken three bruise-worthy hits now, so he was going to be sore when he woke up in a cell.
A stun pulse came from behind me, hitting Abbott in the middle of the chest.
His suit shredded.
His body explosively decompressed.
I looked at the mess in surprise. He must have had some sort of skin break somewhere to cause it. Too bad.
; I turned to look where the stun shot had come from. Jane was standing there. She holstered her guns, and started over towards me. I dropped the Pulse Rifle.
"Why did you do that?" I asked her via PC coms.
"He had it coming," she responded.
"How so?"
"While I was out there, I had the chance to access the ship's computer. Even his own people hated him. As far as anything good about him is concerned, he's been running on empty for a long time. He was seriously overdue for someone to take him out."
"So you happened to the crew?"
She grinned, and nodded.
"How were you able to take the computer over? Wasn’t there another AI?"
"There was, until the Bridge was destroyed. It must have been on the Bridge, because after Gunbus crashed, the ship's computer was wide open to me. I took it over, and turned off the life support."
"Do we have engines?"
"No. One of the Guardians destroyed them to stop the ship from escaping. If I'd realized I had access to the computer a few seconds earlier, I could have saved us some trouble. But Custer will be here in two minutes, so you won't be on suit air for much longer."
"Good. Can you control the combat suit with the Queen still in it?"
"Yes. She's unconscious, but doesn't appear to be injured."
"Okay, let's move to where Custer can get to us. You'll need to give me some support."
She moved over beside me, and I put my left arm around her shoulders. We shuffled along with me holding my left leg out in front slighting and hopping each step. The combat suit followed along.
Outside of Gunbus' hull, she had to lift me over a lot of the debris.
We waited for Custer at a point where the ramp could extend to us. She came in slowly, stopping with the ramp extended. Jane lifted me off the ground, and jumped up to it. She carried me to the top, where Jarvis was waiting. He gave me a pain shot. The suit took the medication, and delivered it to my skin.
After giving it a minute to work, I put my left foot down on the deck, and found I was able to manage a hobble. By the time I arrived at the rear hatch, the airlock was closed and the bay aired up and warm again. I switched to 'slinky red'.
We started towards Deck One. I definitely need to get an access shaft put in.
Thirty Four
With the Queen extracted from the combat suit, with her suit returned to a belt, and her laid out in the XO's bed, I was assisted into my chair on the Bridge.
"Sitrep," I said to Jane.
"You better listen to team coms from a little while ago first."
"General," said Amanda, "can you move a team to the RAF hangers ASAP?"
"Why?" answered Annabelle.
"George and the other pilots are over there. Stunned I think."
"How do you know that?"
"Jon just had another out-of-body experience. Aleesha and I experienced it with him."
"BA?"
"Boss?"
"See to it please."
"Sir!"
"What happened to Jon?" Annabelle asked next.
"Gunbus was shot down, crashing into the Bridge of a pirate Battleship."
"Is he alright?"
"They both are."
"Both?"
"The Queen is with him."
There was a loud sigh.
The recording ended.
"The pirate fleet was destroyed," went on Jane. "Two British ships, a Cruiser and a Destroyer, are intact and under my control, but will both need towing, as they're extensively damaged. Three of the Guardians have minor damage, the fourth has hull breaches and extensive internal damage. We were lucky none of the breaches were against magazines. The Battleship will need towing, but other than no longer having a Bridge or the areas underneath it, it's in reasonable shape. BigMother is free from the station, and undamaged, although some holes along the Flight Deck will need some minor attention, as will the mess you left need some cleaning up. Angel is trying to get out of her cage."
I laughed.
"Let her out please. Tell her I'll be back soon."
"Don’t go back too soon. That is one seriously pissed off puss." I laughed even harder. "The Mercs are still flat on the deck. What do you want to do with them?"
"Can you introduce a gas into the suits?"
"Sure. Make them sleep?"
"Yes. Once asleep, restore the gravity to normal, remove them from their suits and Brig them. Ah, we do have a Brig on BigMother don’t we?"
"We do." She laughed at me.
I still don't know everything about my own ship yet.
"Do that. Take their suits somewhere you can dump them for a while. The Brits might want them."
"Confirmed."
"Can you retrieve Jeeves before we head back to BigMother?"
"You know where he is?"
"My suite, jammed under some debris. I have no idea if he's still functional or not. And while you're there, there's a dead Duke in the Brig. Can you bring the remains back here? He'll need to be formally identified."
Her avatar nodded and hurried out.
"Combat suit is now charging," Jane went on through ship coms. I nodded. "The station was taken. Some minor damage to combat droids, but repairable. All those involved in the coup are in the station detention cells now. Mopping up on the ground is still in progress, but the fighting has ended. No casualties to our team. The pilots were only stunned, and have been moved to a hospital for checks."
"Good. Does anyone need me?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"The nearest doctor."
"Ha-ha. I'll go down to the Medical Bay while we wait for your avatar to return. Once back on board, take us back to BigMother. I'll lie down when we get there."
I hobbled down to the Medical Bay, changed my suit back to a belt, and was looked over by one of the doc-droids. It pronounced me undamaged. It had no explanation for the movement now available in my left knee, but other than the original bruising, I'd not hurt it anymore for all the movement and pressure on it. It did suggest I continue to keep it straight for another few days. I shifted back into 'slinky red', added the leg brace back on, and hobbled up to see if the Queen was awake yet.
She was still out when I went in, and with nothing else to do, I sat on the end of the bed.
She stirred a few minutes later, and bolted upright, with a wild un-Queenly yell.
I grinned at her.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"My Frigate."
"I'm sorry. You were right."
"What about?"
"Running away. I should never have disagreed with you on that."
"Hindsight is always easy. If I’d pulled away a second earlier, we wouldn’t have been hit."
"I think I fainted when the side of the ship vanished. Please don’t tell anyone."
"I won't. You were knocked out in the crash."
"Is that why my arse hurts?"
I chuckled, and grinned at her.
"Ah, no."
"Why then?"
"We both went down five decks worth of stairs, arse first."
"Whatever for?"
"We only had a half hour of air in our suits, and the only working life support was in my combat suit, down in the Armoury. It took me all of that half hour to get us down, and the only way of going down stairs I had, was on my arse. I wasn’t in any condition to carry you, so you went down the same way, one step at a time."
"Oh. You made it then?"
"Obviously."
"What's been happening?"
"I don’t have a full account, but the fighting is ended. My team and your troops took out those staging the coup. The Duke died in the Brig, when we crashed. The pirate Admiral survived, and tried to take another crack at us. He's red paste all over the wreckage of Gunbus' Cargo Deck."
"I'll buy you a new ship, since it's my fault you lost it."
"With luck she can be fixed. When they put the Battleship in for repairs, they can remove Gunbus and see if she's repairable
."
"Battleship?"
"Jane captured it after the crash destroyed the AI they had on board. Its engines were destroyed, so before I can take it home with me, it needs some work."
"Before you take it home with you?"
"Sure. Privateer Law. I'll put in a claim for the ship, having captured it from pirates in a battle."
"What on earth will you use a Battleship for?" She held up her hand at me. "No, don’t tell me, I don’t think I want to know."
"Oh I think I have a few ideas." I grinned at her. "By the way, two of your ships survived. They'll need tows to a shipyard, but should be repairable."
She sighed, remembering mutineers. At least she didn’t have to deal with trials for them. She had a full circus on her hands with any of those in the coup who'd survived.
"Recovery complete," said Jane. "Moving to BigMother."
"Come onto the Bridge," I said to Queen Liz, "and let's see who we can contact."
I hobbled out, and she followed me.
Once on the Bridge, we were able to contact Marshall Bigglesworth. Arrangements were made for the Queen, to meet us on BigMother.
Back on BigMother, we took the long trek up to Deck Two, where I showed her to one of the VIP suites, and suggested she get some rest while her people did their jobs.
I went to my suite, calmed down a not at all happy puss, and discussed with Jane what I wanted done with the Battleship and Gunbus. I intended to get some sleep, so if the opportunity to get them both into a shipyard became available while I slept, Jane would know what to do. I also gave some instructions for adding an access shaft to Custer.
I showered and changed into boxers and t-shirt, and went to bed. Angel curled up by my neck as usual, and I was fast asleep before the lights dimmed.
Hail the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 5) Page 19