Hunter Legacy 11: Home Is Where the Hero Is
Page 22
Time stopped.
I looked over at Thirteen, who was looking at me.
"I've got this," I said to him. "It's not a problem."
"You sure?"
"Positive. Everyone in this room has a belt on. If the ceiling is breached, everyone is safe. The room has air points all over the place, so no-one will be without air for long. And the suits will protect anyone who gets shot while going for air. Even with the prototype gun."
"Fine."
Time started again.
I moved to stand between the combat suit and everyone else. The stunner on the arm tracked me.
"Don’t move," the combat suit bellowed again.
"What do you hope to achieve here?" I asked.
"Your death."
"What did I do?"
"You killed my parents."
"Where?"
"The mining base."
I sighed. Actions have consequences. Cause, meet effect.
"Have you seen the feeds of what happened there?"
"I didn’t need to. I got told all I needed to be told. You killed them."
"They were shooting at a defenseless girl and her baby."
"And that justifies killing them?"
"I gave them fair warning. I told them the consequences. I asked them to stop, and let us go. They made their choice. They started shooting. They died because they chose to shoot unarmed people."
"Except you weren’t unarmed."
"I never am. I told them that. They didn’t believe me. Even now, I can kill you before you can do anything about it."
"Why haven’t you then?"
"Because I don’t want to."
"Well you better. Because I'm going to open this room to space and kill everyone."
"Let me tell you what's going to happen if you do."
"Oh please, this should be interesting."
"No-one will die. No-one will even be hurt. The air will be sucked out, and we will all be standing here, perfectly fine, waiting for you to make your next move. If you do nothing, then five hours from now, you die when your suit air runs out. It'll be boring waiting, but what the hell. If you try to hurt someone, I'll cut you in half, and then we'll evacuate this deck in an orderly fashion, and send in the droids to clean up."
"You cut my parents in half."
"Yes. I'm sorry I had to."
"You're a monster."
"No, the monster was the man who kidnapped my son and his mother. The monster was the man who shot her in the head and the heart, and turned the gun on my son. The monsters were the people who stood there and watched him do it."
A sob came from the combat suit.
"You don’t want to do this," I went on. "That would make you the monster. And only you would die as a result."
"I can gain control of the combat suit now, Jon," said Jane through my PC. "Should I?"
"Wait," I told her. "Let's offer the chance to do the right thing first."
"Your cat would die," said the suit.
I accessed the collars of all three cats, and shifted them to full space suits. The suits immediately sought out air points, and connected. None of them were impressed, and Nut and Max immediately tried to get them off.
"See?"
I looked around, and Amanda shifted into a space suit. One after the other, so did everyone else, including my Mum. I looked back at the combat suit.
"What about you and them?"
The arm pointed at me shifted to point first to Jane, and then Thirteen. And back to me.
"Mine will activate as soon as there's a threat. They don’t need air."
"What?"
"You have no idea what you walked into here, have you. Your parents were the same. They and the man they followed were completely clueless as to our level of combat tech, and the nature of the real world."
"We only wanted to keep what is ours. Your stupid prophecy shouldn't be used to usurp our homes."
I looked at Thirteen. And back again.
"The Keepers did too good a job of limiting what was known about Prophesy. Maybe if more had been released a long time ago, your parents wouldn’t have made stupid assumptions."
"Don’t call my parents stupid!"
"Sorry. Misguided then."
"How on Gaia were they misguided?"
"Has it ever occurred to you why a system with four Earth type planets capable of supporting in excess of twenty billion people without destroying the ecosystem was colonized by only a few thousand and then hidden away?"
"No," the combat suit said grudgingly. "But it's our home. Why should we share it with billions because of some hokey old prediction?"
Kali appeared next to me.
"Because child," she said sternly, "Gaia was created to be the final hiding place of all humanity."
The combat suit shook, and backed up a few steps. Kali waved a hand, and the guns vanished from the suit.
"It's over," I said. "In case you don’t recognize her, this is Kali. Power the suit down, and step out of it."
The suit powered down, and a girl stepped out of the back. She wasn’t more than sixteen as far as I could see. I shifted the cat suits back to collars, and the cats indignantly raced to the top of the nearest tree.
"I might have known," muttered BA.
"One of yours?" I asked her with a grin on my face.
She nodded, as did Aline.
"What are you going to do with me?" asked the girl.
BA looked at me, and I nodded. She started forward, followed by Aline.
"Well for starters," said BA, "you better really like KP duty. Cause you're going to be doing it for the rest of your life."
She and Aline took the now cringing girl by each arm, and led her out. The combat suit powered up, and walked out after them.
"I had that," I said to Kali.
"Did you now, young Jon. Well maybe you did, and maybe you didn’t. And maybe I like to make an entrance now and again."
"You certainly did that."
"I did nothing."
And she vanished.
"Was that really Kali," asked my Mum.
"Yes," said the twins together.
"Your Dad is going to be so pissed when he hears he missed out on all this."
The room burst into laughter.
"Any punishment boss?" pinged BA.
"No. Do what you think is appropriate. Show her the complete feeds of the whole mining station incident. If she wants to quit, let her go. Give her to Jane to take to one of the Australian planets, and start a life. If she wants to stay in boot camp, give her the normal punishment for screwing up, and then see why she chose a combat suit without having been trained on one yet. Be useful to know how she got the prototype, and what she did to hide from Jane. With luck, the gun is back where she found it, but you better check."
"Will do."
The party restarted, but only Aline returned. Thirteen was nowhere to be seen.
Fifty Three
"Jon? Where are you going?"
Aline sounded concerned. Admittedly, it was two in the morning and I’d just accidently woken her when she needed to be up in a couple of hours herself. I'd been tossing and turning since we'd settled down for sleep. Something still bugged me about the whole novels thing. And it'd kept me awake. It just hadn’t made sense. Until just now.
It wasn’t fair on her, abruptly sitting up in bed, and moving to get out, but there was something I just had to do. Angel opened one eye, looked at me without moving, and closed it again.
"Go back to sleep. I won't be long."
I padded out into the living room in my t-shirt and boxers. It wouldn’t matter what I was wearing so I didn’t bother shifting into 'slinky red'. After all, no-one would ever see me do this.
Besides, it somehow tickled my sense of humour, sending this message standing here in the living room dressed for bed.
It was something I needed to do. If nothing else it should clear my head, once and for all, and let me forget my life was entertainment. Becau
se it wasn’t, and the readers needed to understand this.
It felt right, and maybe it was something, which above all else, needed to be said.
I started a vid, and looked straight into the cam.
Fifty Four
My name is Jonathon Hunter.
If you're reading this, I haven’t been born yet.
For six hundred years, my life over the past year has become Prophesy.
Not a prophecy, but Prophesy.
For the last year, the higher beings have been training me.
Making me into the leader they needed me to be.
I've had to become something different.
Something more.
Someone others would follow.
But it has never been about me.
Humanity is at stake.
If you remember nothing else from what you've read, remember this.
DARKNESS IS COMING!
Jonathon Hunter
Will return
in
Hero in Darkness.
Acknowledgements
Once again, a big thank you for Helen Ellis, sounding board, ear that listens, and experience which talks.
Thanks also go to Elliott Webber, for the graphic design of BigMother, for the cover. Also thanks to Egosoft, for allowing me to use photos from their games, to make the cover of this book.
A Message to my Readers
I’ve had a lot of fun writing this book. There is still a lot of story to come, and I invite you to come along for the full journey with me.
If you have enjoyed this book, I hope you will take the time to leave a review on the Amazon site. All reviews are greatly appreciated, as they help assist purchasing decisions by other readers. Sales and reviews will help me to focus on the next book in the series, which impacts how fast the next installment is released.
Please join me on the series Facebook Page:
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You are welcome to discuss the series on the Facebook Group:
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Thank you.
Also by Timothy Ellis
These Kindle eBooks can be found on
Timothy Ellis’ Kindle Author page.
These links can also be found at TimothyEllisAuthor.com.
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00HRTTIJG
The Hunter Legacy
Part One
Jonathon Hunter – Omnibus One
Hero at Large.
Hunted Hero Hunting.
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Part Three
Home is where the Hero is
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