I was getting close to my own troops now, close enough to notice some in the middle no longer wearing combat suits, with the others trying to protect them from hits.
"Dropships land," I yelled over the general combat babble. "Evac everyone except those still in full fighting condition."
I heard Grace acknowledge, and Jack give orders. I continued to hack down enemy suits, as nearly three quarters of the teams dived on board the Dropships, some leaving their combat suits behind.
The rest of them, including all the giant suits, came together in a single firing line. Each giant suit picked its own target, while the remainder of the combat suits all shot at the same target together.
Jane and I continued to engage the suits continuing to come at me, as I worked my way across the back of the remaining lines of enemy suits.
"Jon," said Jane, "Its almost equal numbers now, and they've stopped advancing. We have two stable lines now, firing at each other."
"Who’s senior on the ground?" I bellowed.
"Us," said the twins.
"Pick them off from the left, I've got the right."
"Right."
"I said left."
"Left, right!"
My line all fired at three targets down the left of the enemy line, and I rushed the enemy suit on the right end.
We moved in towards the center.
Fire picked off the second last one, while I hacked down the last.
I stood there for a moment, fighting exhaustion.
It started to rain.
Actual water this time.
Eleven
I looked around me. Broken suits littered the ground for hundreds of meters in all directions, with holes everywhere, some of them still smoking. I looked up, rain spattering the head of my suit. The small group of my remaining team were ponderously walking over to me.
I stood there, thinking about what to do next.
The rain stopped, but not far away it was still bucketing down. I looked up again, to see Gunbus coming down above us. The rain started again, as Jane was forced to find some empty space to set down on. From her Cargo Bay, a mixed group of marines, led by Jack and Sam, escorted about half the medical team out. All of the marines were in 'slinky red', which told me none of their combat suits was combat worthy. Jack headed for where I was, while the rest headed for the nearest barracks. I assumed they were looking for anyone left behind earlier, or injured and needing assistance. Or both. Jane would be directing them in any case, so I left them to get on with it.
"Jane."
"Yes Bwana?"
"Clean this mess up please."
"Camel is already on the way down with a cleaning crew."
"Good. Next task is finding the entrance to this bunker. We may have destroyed it, in which case we either need to find an alternate entrance, or make a new one."
"Confirmed."
Eight combat suits started off for different places along the wall. I assumed it meant four others hadn't made it through the fight, protecting me.
"Better keep an eye out for anyone coming out of an escape tunnel somewhere. I've no idea if we took out the General, but I suspect we didn’t, and he's either cowering underneath us somewhere, or trying to escape."
"On it."
The twins dropped down from their giant suits, and then stepped out of their combat suits, and did some stretching exercises. BA and the others followed their example. Jack came up to us, as I stepped out the back of my own suit. There was a patch of clean grass in front of me, so I sat on it. The rest did the same in a group facing me.
"What's our operational status," I asked generally.
"The majority of the combat suits are almost out of charge," said Jack. "A lot of them are damaged in some way, and some of them are over on the grass over there. The Mesons are wonderful to be able to fire without a tripod power source, but they really chew through the juice if you don’t get a chance to let them recharge properly. The whole system works brilliantly, but the power doesn’t last anywhere near as long as with using Pulse Rifles."
Camel roared overhead, and Jane landed on the grass next to me. She waved in a general direction.
"Four of my suits are over that way. They're repairable, but weren't able to keep up with you, so I left them where they took damage."
"I'm sorry I didn’t listen to you more boss," said BA. I raised an eyebrow, and she went on. "I didn't take you seriously about adding shields to the giant suits. They would have made a huge difference today."
She nodded in Jane's direction, and received one back. The two of them had some development work in mind it seemed.
"I think we learned a few lessons here today," said Alison.
"A few?" I grinned at her tiredly.
"Yes," said Amanda. "I wished we'd thought out these new suits a lot better."
"How so?"
"It strikes me we've only been thinking of them in terms of larger suits, and limited use vehicles. But what we desperately needed here a while ago, was a small fortress. If we'd thought it out properly, we could have changed the giant suits into a fortification, which fired its own weapons while giving the normal suits somewhere to hide behind."
"Could have had its own shields too," said BA, "keeping the regular troops safe as they picked off attackers."
"Talking of fortifications," I said. "Didn’t anyone think of using the big Mesons, or bulldozer mode, to dig trenches?"
There was an embarrassed silence. Camel was down now, and cargo droids were swarming out. With them came a number of butler droids, with what looked like packs of water.
"This whole thing was nuts," I went on. "I mean, two combat suited armies charging each other? It's really stupid when you think about it. What can two suits do in hand to hand combat, but batter on each other until one suit fails? I guess that happened a bit, but the real combat is dueling at a distance using heavy weapons. So what happened here? We ended up dueling with heavy weapons at point blank range. How did that work out for all of you?"
"Badly," admitted Jack. "We won because of three main things. One, better suits, and the added protection of extra belt suits. Two, better weapons, and discipline firing them. And three, one of us had an invincible sword."
"I wish we'd all had them boss," said BA. "Given your success with it, we need to come up with something along those lines for this sort of melee. Jane, we need to go back to the drawing board for hand combat in suits. We need something which will cut through a combat suit, as if it wasn’t there."
"Confirmed."
Water was passed around, and we all drank deeply. The butlers had finger food as well, and we nibbled for a while, each lost in our own thoughts.
"But that defeats the purpose of the exercise," I said at last. "I've never seen the point of wearing armour which conventional weapons punch through easily. Granted, we were breaking all the rules here today, but such rules are meant to be broken. But if you make suits pointless, you need to improve the suit again so it isn’t pointless. And the one thing which always happens when we make a breakthrough, is someone steals it, and uses it against us. It's only a matter of time before anything you develop now, will become general use, and we're back to today, only worse."
"Still worth doing," said Alana quietly from the back.
"True," I admitted. "I also like the fortification idea."
"And we can think about better tactics on the ground too," said Jack. "Trenches was such an obvious move, and none of us thought of it. We could have had bulldozers make a trench and berm arrangement in the dark zone, while the talking was going on."
"It didn't occur to me either."
"You were rather busy," said Aleesha, with a grin.
I flopped back on the grass, and lay there, letting the rain hit me in the face. I really needed some sleep.
"In hindsight, maybe it would have been better had I not destroyed the wall, and forced them to charge."
"It was the right call," said Jack. "Without their Mesons, we weren't qu
ite so disadvantaged by numbers. Code red was also the right call. The extra suit protection was the difference here. As was the command to pool fire, and concentrate on outright kills for each firing. They were less prepared for this than we were, as they expected to be picking us off from their fortification. Depriving them of it, made a huge difference to the outcome. It levelled the playing field, since neither side had a plan."
I lay there, fighting fatigue.
"Found the entrance," said Jane.
"We got this boss," said BA. "You rest. We'll take a look downstairs."
"Fine, but be careful."
"You know me boss. Careful is my middle name. Not."
She grinned at me, and I couldn’t help smiling back at her.
"Saddle up," said Jack, taking charge.
Those with still functional combat suits, stepped back into them, and followed Jack towards where Jane's suits were grouped. It was mid-way along the now destroyed wall. Jane's avatar stayed with me.
Jeeves was back a short time later, and gave me a stimulant. My mind cleared, but my body still felt like it was weighted down with lead. I stayed where I was, lying on the grass, listening to team coms, as Jane's suits led them down, and into a warren of corridors and rooms. Reluctantly, I pulled my attention away from their search, and began doing karmic releases. Surprisingly, they didn’t generate much in the way of physical reactions.
Above ground, cargo droids were collecting suits. In each case, they took a genetic sample, to aid identification of the body, and in case any bounty was claimable. The bodies which could be removed from the suits were taken beyond the wall, ready for burial. The suits were piled together ready for collection. The not so badly damaged ones could be repaired. The rest would be scrapped and salvaged.
In the time it took for the battlefield to be cleared, the team below had searched most of the complex down there.
"Took your time Hunter," said the General. "You did well above. But here, I win. Goodbye."
There was a massive explosion below me, and the entire area fell into the crater which was all that remained.
Twelve
"Jon!"
It was Amanda. For a moment, I was confused as to how this could be. She'd been at the center of the blast.
I opened my eyes. Amanda stood over me.
I was lying on the grass.
"You went to sleep Jon," said Amanda.
"Found the entrance," said Jane.
"We got this boss," said BA. "You rest. We'll take a look downstairs."
"NO!"
I leapt up. Startled looks came from everyone.
"Immediate evac. I want this entire area clear of people as fast as it's possible to do, and within the next half hour maximum. Jane, the cargo droids can clear the area of all suits, but they don’t have time to process them here. Use Camel and Unthinkable to load everything."
"Confirmed."
"What did you see Jon?" asked Aline.
"The General is downstairs waiting for us, and he has a bomb."
"How do you know that?" asked Jack.
"He fell asleep," said Aleesha. "He sees the future when he does."
Jack looked skeptical, but started giving orders. Within minutes, Unthinkable was down again, but landed well away from the combat area. The giant suits were walked onto Camel, and the remains of the battlefield was rapidly moved to Unthinkable. The last few civilians were found, and moved to Gunbus.
Twenty minutes was all it took, and the three ships lifted off. I took Gunbus up to Custer, and docked nose to nose. The civilians and medical team were transferred to Custer.
"Jane, how many combat droids do we have with us?"
"Only a dozen."
"That’s enough."
I told her what to do. We undocked again, and I brought Gunbus back down to the demolished wall. Jack and the alpha team emerged in 'slinky red', and proceeded to the entrance to the bunker. They headed down. I lifted Gunbus again, and climbed up to a thousand meters, where I had a good view of the entire area. Custer was still at five thousand, and still scanning for a second entrance. We hadn't found one in the buildings, but it wasn’t conclusive, since one could have been hidden anywhere. For that matter, there could be another entrance in the mine.
I waited. The team below slowly searched the complex down there, with Jane mapping their progress from up here.
I started doing releases, but was told they had already been done.
"Took your time Hunter," said the General eventually. "You did well above. But here, I win. Goodbye."
There was a massive explosion, and the entire battlefield area fell into the crater which was all that remained of the complex underneath.
"Wasn’t that a waste of good combat droids?" asked Amanda.
"Maybe, but it made him reveal his last play. It also gives him nowhere to go, but out."
"Or up," said Jane. "Hanger doors opening on the south side of the walled area."
I brought us around, and painted the opening doors with a target lock.
Before the doors had stopped moving, a Corvette sized ship began to rise up. I opened a channel to it.
"Sorry General. You missed."
"What? How? I saw your party in the operations room before I blew it."
"No, you saw what I wanted you to see. Land on the ground outside of the hanger. If you attempt to escape, I'll blow your ship."
"Fuck you Hunter. Open fire!"
The channel closed. The ship continued to rise, and its guns opened up on us. I side slipped us away from the fire, lined them up, and fired ten torpedoes. The shields failed with number six, and the next four destroyed the Bridge. The ship, no longer under control, fell to the ground, and exploded.
I brought us down again a short way away.
"Jane, send your suits to do a quick explore of the hanger, and whatever is still accessible beyond it. It would be just like the General to have left some people behind, or even still be down there himself. If any of the combat droids survived the blast, see if you can get them out."
"Confirmed."
"Anyone want to check the wreckage?"
Alana and BA were the first out the door. The rest of us followed. At the bottom of the ramp, we stopped.
The sun was coming up.
Aline grabbed me by the arm and stopped me falling down the ramp. The two of us stood there, observing the sunrise, while the rest of the team searched the wreckage. It didn’t take long to confirm the General was indeed dead, along with a dozen others. Not long after, Jane confirmed the remaining part of the complex was empty of people. These releases I did do, standing there in the light of the new day.
By six, we'd all docked back with BigMother, and offloaded. I left dealing with the remains of our enemies to Jane and the medicos. All we needed was enough of a bio-sample to confirm identity. The rest was to be extracted from suits, and returned to the planet for burial. Jane was going to recycle the suits.
Angel wasn’t impressed I'd been away all day again, but she was very affectionate. I took her to dinner with me, and she purred away on my lap while I ate.
Amy sat near me during dinner, giving me the eye now and again.
"What?" I finally said to her.
"How much of the events here can I give to the media?"
I thought it over while enjoying another spoon full of dessert.
"Hunter Security, with the help of the Apricot Mapping Service, discovered the long sought after pirate base, in an unknown system one jump from Libya. The system is currently being explored for other jump points, and is being claimed for the Duchy of Hunter's Run. Battles were fought on the station being used as the pirate main base, the Shipyard they had been using to build Battleships from, and the planet below, being mined by slave labour. The slaves have all been rescued, and will be returned to Libya shortly, where they can decide what they wish to do next. Details of pirates killed will be released in due course. Ships captured include two older Battleships, and a number of lesser class
ships. These will be refitted, and used to protect Hunter interests in this area of the spine."
"Does this system have a name?" asked Amy.
"Treasure Chest," said Jane. "I found it on the ship databases."
"Fine with me," I said. "You can use it." I turned to Jane. "How are we for ships you can use to defend this system with once we leave?"
"I can have the Shipyard operational by morning if I strip the computer out of the Trojan Cruiser. Once I clone myself to the Shipyard, my clone can begin upgrading the ships here with the usual features. It'll take a few days to get the fabricators ready. In the meantime, the Battleships and several of the others should be quite adequate as they are, at least for defense of the system."
"Should we leave a squadron of fighters here as well?" asked Lacey.
"Annette?"
"Boss?"
"Would you like to take command here?"
"For how long?"
"No idea."
"Then no."
"No?"
"I don’t want to miss Outback."
"Fair enough. What do you think Jane?"
"We'll be close by for the next few days, and by the time we head back up the spine, I'll have the Corvettes rigged like Unthinkable anyway. All they really need are pilots."
"We have some I think," said Jack.
"How so?"
"I was talking to some of the survivors of the mine on the way up the first time. A lot of them were captured on their ships, and are experienced ship crews. A few of them asked what things were like out there now, and how difficult it would be to find ships to work on."
"You think some of them might stay here and form the core of a defense force?"
"Can't hurt to ask them."
"Do so then. If they want to sign up with Hunter Security, and they check out, I've no objections. But make very sure none of them are pirates hiding among their victims."
"We’ve found a few," said Dick. "Not as many as I expected to actually. D-Jane is still processing people, but we should be complete by the morning."
"Good. I want to be on the road home first thing."
Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates Page 7