The Cruisers and Talons I'd collected in Midgard would not need adjudication. I had salvaged derelicts under the Trader salvage code, where the owner had abandoned them. Granted in some cases, there was room to quibble I hadn't given them time to retrieve their property, but on the other hand, it was effectively a war zone, and the first lot had been sitting in space for nearly a week before I collected them. If that didn’t indicate abandonment, I didn't know what did. I did have two salvaged medium freighters as well, but these I would need to submit to Customs in Sydney to see if they could find the rightful owners. If not, they would be mine by default.
Angel stood up from where she was on her pad on the console, stretched, ran down her ramp and out. My stomach rumbled. I checked the time, and it was approaching dinner time. I holstered my pad, and sauntered down to the common room for dinner.
I arrived there to find all the seats taken and one pilot standing around wondering where to eat. I'd forgotten the table sat sixteen, and there were eighteen of us now.
I invited Miriam up to my dining room. Jeeves was already laying out two places when we arrived. Angel was scratching her kitty castle.
While we were eating, I asked her why she flew Epees.
"I like the ship. It's fun to fly, has the best speed in the fleet, and has always brought me home. Until now."
"You should try out Excalibur while you have the chance. You can bring up a holographic simulator when sitting in the cockpit."
"I'd like that. Thank you. Will George mind?"
"It's not his ship, so he doesn’t get a say." I grinned at her. She couldn’t help but grin back.
After dinner, during which Miriam seemed to make a lot of eye contact with me, we headed down to Excalibur, via the common room. I called out to George that we were going on down for a simulator run. He waved back. I overheard Amanda suggesting a spa to some of the pilots.
I was laughing to myself as we cycled through Excalibur's airlock.
"What's up chuckles?" asked Miriam.
"Amanda. She was suggesting a spa to some of your pilots. It holds twelve, and those girls go in naked. I was wondering if I'll be breaking up fights over them later."
She laughed loudly. She settled into the pilot's seat, and I alighted on the jump seat behind her.
"I'll keep an eye on them. Don’t worry. They might get a bit boisterous, but they are good lads. You're close with Amanda and Aleesha, aren't you? What's the story there? Forgive me if I'm intruding." I chuckled.
"They started out as my bodyguards, but being the teases they both are, they insisted on guarding my body everywhere it went, including the bed and the shower. When I no longer needed a bodyguard, things went a lot further. My first and only threesome, you could say. Then they left for the contract on Pompeii, which went bust and left them stranded in the middle of a civil war. When I finally received word of where they were, I busted a gut to get there. Things went back the way they were, until the Colonel officially assigned the team to me. At that point, I became a no-go zone, except they seem to have forgotten that since you and your pilots came aboard. So at the moment, I can't say I understand what's going on. We are close. We share a bond we don't understand yet, something that goes beyond logical explanation. I also know that without them, I won't survive the darkness that’s coming."
"Darkness?"
"It's a prophesy from home. Supposedly a great darkness is coming and I might be someone who plays a key role in what happens next. No-one but the Keepers know anything about it, and I've been told less than normal, because my naming after birth was one of the first signs that now is the time. However, to put that in perspective, the early signs have come true a number of times already, and nothing happened."
"You don’t suppose your darkness and Ragnarok are the same thing?"
"Hell, that hadn't occurred to me. The timing and content do seem similar. It doesn’t matter at the moment though, it's a bit under eleven months before I can see the Keepers again and ask them. Anyway, let's get you sorted."
I brought up the simulator system and left her playing with it. I went back to the Bridge.
I was sitting there staring out into space.
What will you do if the jump point is blockaded?
That was the longest thing that voice had ever said inside my head before. I wished I knew who it was. But so far, every time I asked, I received no answer.
I started thinking about it. How should I handle it? I was sick of fighting, to tell the truth. I really didn’t want to be forced to kill any more. The moral dilemma of a spiritual person killing regularly, at times, really gutted me.
You cannot avoid it. But how you wield death is in your power.
"Jane, did you get a chance to do any analysis on the Midgard ships while you were in Azgard?"
"Janet did. She sent me a copy."
"Anything different from stock standard ships?"
"Yes actually. The computer systems on each ship, including the Cruisers, is antique. No, more like prehistoric. There is just enough computer for the pilot to be able to fly the ship. No intelligence at all, only command functionality." She displayed the specs on a side screen.
"I guess it makes sense for those who reject technology. Like all extremists, they seem to say one thing, and quietly do another behind the masses back. In this case, using space ships, a form of technology, to kill others that use the same technology, those they deem a threat to them. I guess dumbing down the ships is needed to keep their message from being perceived as hypercritical."
"Why did you ask?"
"You were able to take over control of some of the ships, weren’t you?"
"Yes. Those with an undamaged computer. The rest had to be towed."
"Any protection from you in place?"
"None."
"Could you take them over while the pilots had control?"
"Sure. What do you have in mind?"
I told her and we discussed the possibilities.
I left Jane to figure out how to do what I'd suggested, and went back into my living room, intending to meditate. I found Miriam there.
"I love that ship. I want one!"
"I thought you might." I grinned at her. She grinned back.
She stood, and came over to me.
"By the way Jon, I wanted to give you a private thank you for keeping us alive. Gunbus took out a number of missiles targeted on me that I had no chance of taking out before they hit me, so you saved my life."
She pulled my head down and kissed me for long enough that we both needed air desperately before she broke the kiss.
She pulled me into my bedroom and closed the door. She removed her uniform tunic, blouse and pants. I let my suit flow back into a belt and we both stood there in our underwear for a moment looking at the other. She pulled off her top, and finally her bikini briefs. She reached for my briefs and pulled them down, and I stepped out of them. She pushed me back on to the bed, and pulled my socks off as well.
For the next few hours, she taught me a lot about how to use a stiletto.
Thirteen
By midnight I was showered, changed and back on the Bridge. George was on standby in Excalibur. Amanda, Aleesha, Miriam and Eric were on the Bridge as well.
I didn’t expect anything to happen right away, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Nothing had happened at our closest approach to the planet, which given what I was doing at the time had been just as well, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a picket between us and the jump point, or the jump point itself wasn’t heavily guarded.
Now was not a time to take chances.
We sat there for a while in silence.
"Jon, play that song again," said Amanda.
"Find that place?"
"Yeah, that’s the one."
The three of us had meditated to it not long ago. It was a six hundred year old spiritual song. I threw it on to the Bridge sound system and we sat there listening in silence.
"Nice," said Miriam. "What else d
o you have?"
I threw some more, and we spent the next hour listening to various tracks not heard, by anyone except antique aficionados like myself, for centuries.
"You know Jon," said Miriam, when they ended, "you really are a hopeless romantic."
"I was thinking the same thing," said Aleesha. Amanda nodded. Eric was grinning.
"What?" I said, not having a clue what they were talking about.
The grins grew wider.
Meow.
"See, even Angel agrees," said Amanda. We all laughed.
Things went silent again. The tension slowly built as we approached the jump point.
Just as I feared, red dots sprang onto the scanner, with one dull red dot. Instantly a barrage of yellow dots appeared. There were no green or blue dots, but there were a lot of grey dots. There had been one hell of a battle here. Looks like the Americans had chosen to withdraw rather than continue to hold the beachhead.
"Gunbus to Starman."
"Yes Sir?"
"Do not engage. Speed run for the jump point and go through. Gunbus will deal with this. I want to try something different. Tell whoever is on the other side with their fingers on the trigger, to hold fire and check friend or foe before engaging."
"Roger that. Good luck."
"How close do we need to get Jane?"
"Just coming into range now."
All of a sudden, all the enemy ships ceased movement. About a minute later, the missile barrage self-destructed.
"What the hell?" said Miriam. "What did you do?"
"Sorry Jon," said Jane. "It didn’t work as well as expected. I have control of all of the ships, but the crews are dead."
"Damn it, what happened?"
"I think as they started to lose consciousness, they committed suicide. There are signs of poison on their faces. Wait, we have one survivor, a Talon pilot. There appears to have been something wrong with his life support system, and he passed out so fast he wasn’t able to trigger the poison."
"What did you do?" asked Miriam again.
"I asked Jane to try and take over their ship computers. If it worked, she was to decrease the life support to the point where they would pass out. If there were any missiles fired, she would abort them. It never occurred to me they would choose death rather than capture."
"We have a prisoner?"
"It appears so."
"Good, maybe we can find out now why all this is happening."
"That was the idea. Jane, let's have that Talon into the hanger please.
"Confirmed."
Gunbus altered course towards the stationary ships. The American fighters continued on to the jump point, and jumped through.
"What are the derelict ships here?" I asked Jane.
"Nineteen Sabres, twenty seven Epees, nine Broadswords. There are the remains of around ninety Talons here, but none of them are intact enough for salvage."
I looked at Miriam.
"Broadswords are bombers," she said. "We must have received reinforcements. Yorktown didn’t carry any."
"Looks like they hit your people as hard here as they did us at the other jump point. I guess my instructions went out the window in the need to survive."
"And they didn’t do so well, even though they had better numbers than us. Hell, I recognize some of those ships as friends." Her face was white. "Jane, how many of ours are empty?"
"Twenty six ejected. I'm sorry to say, there are twenty six ejection pods out there. No life signs. The rest of the pilots are still in their fighters."
Miriam teared up, trying desperately not to. Fifty five dead American pilots. The Americans had obviously been losing and decided to withdraw. There was no dead Missile Cruiser here, so it and about thirty Talons must have survived. There were only twelve here now though, so presumably these were replacements so they could be repaired and rearmed. This shit was real. Until now, it hadn't really sunk in that this was a war. Nothing like friendly casualties to show you the ugly truth.
"They were shooting at me after I ejected," said Eric. "If you recall when you saved me. Must have done the same thing here."
"Bastards!" swore Amanda and Aleesha together.
We came to a stop near the formation of twelve Talons. One of them started to move towards us, as the hanger doors began to open.
"Jane, can you overlay a Hunter ownership ID onto those ships, so they show up as friendly when we jump through?"
"Confirmed. They'll show white to you, and green to the Americans."
"Good."
A moment later, the thirteen enemy ships were showing as friendly white.
"Take over as many of the derelicts as you can please, and send them through to land on Yorktown. Send out the SR droids and have them collect the dead pilots."
"Confirmed."
"Will our salvage droids be able to collect the rest of them in one go? I don’t want to linger here any longer."
"They can, but some extra damage may occur as they come together. The droid will have to use a stronger level of gravity to hold more than one ship. Some debris is going to stick as well. When they turn the grav sleds off, there is going to be a mess on the deck."
I looked to Miriam. She nodded.
"Do it, let's get them home," I said.
We waited while all the derelict ships were sent through the jump point, by which time the Talon was docked in Gunbus' hanger. I sent security droids to the hanger deck in case the pilot woke up.
Jane formed the Talons and Missile Cruiser up into a line, and they followed us to the jump point.
On the other side, there was a huge array of craft all staking out the jump point. I could make out two Carriers, and there were more than three times the number of capital ships here than when we left. Fighters zipped around in what seemed like huge numbers. Two squadrons of Sabres formed up on each side of our little line, and escorted us towards Yorktown.
"Yorktown to Gunbus. What's all this?"
"I thought I'd bring you guys a present," I said with a laugh. Miriam was smiling, but I could see she was still grieving too much to laugh. "Unfortunately, it didn’t go quite as well as I'd liked, but please tell the Admiral, we have a live prisoner."
"Roger that Gunbus. Dock in the same place on Yorktown as last time please."
"Confirmed," I said.
The rest of them thought that was really funny.
I sent off the emails I had waiting, and another to let Colonel Smith know we made it safely to Miami.
Fourteen
Greer, Miriam, and I, were escorted to the Admiral's conference room. We'd left George, Amanda, Aleesha, Eric, and Jane in the pilot's lounge. The enemy prisoner had been removed from the Talon and taken to a holding cell. The Talon had been transferred to Yorktown.
Admiral Hallington and Captain Renaud greeted us, and we all sat.
"Welcome back Captain and Commanders," said the Admiral. We nodded. "Captain, thank you for your updates. Would that we had fared as well as your command did."
"What happened sir?" asked Greer.
"Much the same as happened to you at the Azgard jump point. Our force was hit by ten squadrons of Talons and two Missile Cruisers. We had added a squadron of Broadswords to the four squadrons of fighters rotating there. Of the five squadrons, only five ships survived. By all accounts, both Missile Cruisers were damaged, and at least eighty of the Talons destroyed."
"Ninety sir," I said. He nodded.
"In any case, this was a defeat the likes we've not had in one hundred years. We lose ships periodically. That’s the nature of warcraft. You can't make war without taking casualties. But losing fifty five pilots in one engagement is a devastating loss."
"They have to have a large shipyard somewhere," I said. "There is no way they can be building ships this fast without one."
"We agree," said Captain Renaud. "Problem is, we aren’t able to locate it."
"We need your ships," said the Admiral.
I must have looked surprised. I couldn’t see t
hat my two ships would be much use on their own.
"Let me rephrase that," he said with a laugh. "Commander Greer has put forward a compelling argument for us to buy at least a squadron of Gunbus'. Commander Young has made a similar argument for a wing of Excalibur's. Captain, we need them. And we need them yesterday."
"Not possible sir," I responded. "It would take Sydney Shipyard months to construct that many ships." Not to mention, delay my refit plans that long as well.
"We have a solution. I've spoken with your General Harriman, who put me on to Bob Derr at Sydney Shipyard. Mr. Derr has agreed to license us to build the ships for an appropriate license fee. Assuming you agree. We also want your AI. It's been well demonstrated that the ships without the AI would be like combat suits with no feet."
I was struggling to keep up. AI's was something I'd been thinking about, though, so I had a ready answer.
"Actually sir, I was going to suggest you bring your own AI here. The stunt we pulled with taking over their ships could help if they come through the jump point. At least for as long as they continue using a computer in the ships. At some point I think they'll work out what we're doing and remove even the antiques in them now. You could use that AI in the new ships."
"We don’t have an AI Captain. It's one of those arguments that has been going on since they were invented. How much automation do you put in military ships? The purists say none, so that crews will always have full control if the computer is damaged or corrupted. Those who read, watch and believe in science fiction, say do what you've done. Give the AI complete control under ownership supervision. All of our ships have decent computers, but none of them have an AI. However, I see the need for them with your ships. And we want your AI, because it has already been in a lot of combat, and thus is already configured for combat ships. We're prepared to pay you the current commercial price of the top of the line AI, each time it's cloned."
"A moment sir," I said. He nodded.
I asked Jane some questions sub-vocally. There was a pause, and she gave back some answers.
"What are you offering sir?" I asked.
"I understand that both Excalibur and Gunbus are your designs, built using Mr. Derr's experience and yard." I nodded. "We will pay a license fee of twenty five million credits to both you and Mr. Derr for each license for Gunbus, and five million credits for each license for Excalibur. This will allow us to build them at Dallas. If Dallas Shipyard drops everything else and only builds those two ships, we should have two squadrons of Excalibur's and one of Gunbus' here within three weeks."
Send in the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 3) Page 10