Hero to the End (The Hunter Legacy Book 13)

by Timothy Ellis

  Reactions varied, from communities which held candle light vigils for the Midgard dead, to those who said it was a good thing those maniacs weren't joining the exodus.

  By the time we left Midgard, the aliens were only six days behind us, in both Dallas and Atlanta, as well as Washington.

  Over the next sixteen hours, the fleet moved on to Azgard, found an empty planet, took what they could find of use, and moved on to Cobol.

  I didn’t pay any attention to any of it. With nothing left to keep me occupied, my mind started going around in a vicious circle. I shut myself in my suite with as much of the bar in the Mess as I could carry, and swam to the bottom of the first bottle which came to hand. I hate the taste of strong alcohol, but this time, I didn’t notice. It went down like the ginger ale I normally drank, but kicked like the proverbial mule, and I went under, mercifully drowning out the voice inside me which told me a planet full of people had found me more terrifying than the doom of their prophecy. They were dead because of me. The words "Hunter would be here soon to take care of them" haunted me into oblivion.

  Aline finally managed to wake me. I came to with a massive throbbing pain in my head, as if someone had thrust an ice pick into each temple, and then for good measure, buried an axe in the back of my head. I immediately threw up all over her, and fell off the bed, which had felt strangely wet. I lay there until Aline and Jane dragged me into the shower. We stayed there for a fair while, Aline cradling my head in her arms, warm water pouring down on both of us. I cried until I passed out again, the tears washed away by the falling water.

  When I came to again, I was in a care unit.

  "Welcome back sunshine," said Carter.

  I looked at her blearily, and tried to sit up, managing to make it to one elbow. Aline was asleep in a chair across the way. Jane nodded to me from the chair next to her.

  My head was clear, thankfully.

  "You're first bender?" asked Carter.

  "No, but last time it was beer, and someone talked me down before it got out of hand."

  "You didn’t give anyone the chance this time," said Jane, now standing next to the care unit. "It took me eighteen hours to crack your door code. You've been in here for six."

  "It took that long for the care unit to rebalance you," said Carter.

  "Why didn't you break the door down?" I asked Jane.

  "You activated the suite seals, which normally only activate if the deck loses atmosphere and someone is in the suite."

  "Oh. Did I? I don’t remember."

  "What do you remember?"

  "Not much. Digging graves, swimming in a bottle, and Aline holding me in the shower."

  "Those were the highlights."

  I sat up properly, feeling better by the moment.

  "Sitrep."

  "We're at the Cobol Azgard jump point. You lost about a day all up. And you have one very pissed off cat to deal with, who spent the night with Nut, after just about wearing her claws off trying to scratch her way in where her cat flap normally was."

  "Oh."

  "Oh doesn’t really cover it."

  "Yes Grandma."

  Carter laughed, told me I could go, and left herself.

  Jane woke Aline, and they both saw me back to my suite, which had been cleaned up. Angel was waiting for me on the bed, and instead of giving me the back foot flick, she launched herself at me, and we had a long cuddle. I told her I was sorry for locking her out, and it wouldn’t happen again.

  Aline pulled me into the shower, and we washed, pulled on new underwear, shifted, and went along to the Mess, where everyone else was. Most of them laughed at how I looked, but BA and the twins didn’t, looking concerned.

  I couldn’t bear the sight of food, but I managed some fruit mush and water, and started to feel better. Vonda came in as I was finishing up the bottle.

  "We've had a request from Atlantis for help," she said. "Apparently their cities are rated for space, but they can't get them up there. Everyone assumes you'll come up with a way."

  I took a moment, and no-one said a thing. When I looked up, they were all looking at me.

  "Jane?"

  "Yes, oh bleary leader?"

  "How much lead do we have?"

  "At their current rate of advance, they'll be here in ten days. We can be in Atlantis in under eight hours at fleet speed, less if we push it."

  "How are we going on the defenses?"

  "In progress, and should be complete well before they get here."

  "Prepare Gunbus for a side trip. General Wellington?"

  "Sir?"

  "I'm leaving you in command here. I'll try and be back in time, but if we’re not, have Admiral's Sato and O'Neil advise you on when to pull out."

  I could see by her face she wasn’t happy about being left in command, but she had the rank here.

  "Yes sir."

  "General Smith?"

  "Sir?"

  "Mount up. It seems we're going fishing!"

  Forty Four

  Atlantis presented an interesting problem. On a planet which is predominantly water, the cities had been built to exist in the water. The normal rules for building space stations had been applied, but aimed at keeping water out instead of air in. In terms of what stations normally looked like, these were definitely non-standard. But they did share some characteristics, having the normal docking ring, but at the top of the station so ships could load and offload normally.

  I had to ask them why they wanted their stations at all, given we had the capacity to evacuate everyone. I won't repeat the answers, but let's just say, those who live in water, wouldn’t live anywhere else, given a choice. Gaia four, five, and six, all had reasonable sized oceans, so they had somewhere to go. The problem was getting them into space intact, and getting them back into an ocean later.

  I had a few ideas, and Jane discussed them with the city engineers. It took a while, but we figured out how to use Gunbus as a lifting body. The main airlock was to be covered over with grav sleds, so the entire front surface would grip the city. The engineers recommended where to attach the ship to each city, but couldn’t understand how we were going to do this with just a Corvette. Jane tapped her nose and grinned at them. I grinned at her.

  While Gunbus was being modified, Dick had a report for me.

  "We found out why Pompeii was left behind."

  "Oh? Do tell."

  "It seems the slavery movement had sympathizers on Miami, who owned slaves on Pompeii, and used to holiday there to use them."

  "Use them?"

  "Unpaid servants for the most part, but there are plenty of stories about sex slaves as well, of both genders. And most of them were treated pretty badly, which is of course why the insurrection occurred."

  "Do we know who these Miamians are?"

  "Some. Enough in government circles to ensure what came in from the American sector about the evacuation didn’t include anything about Pompeii. Those in charge genuinely didn’t know they'd been tasked with ensuring Pompeii was evacuated with them."

  "Anyone in custody?"

  "Yes. Jane found enough digital footprints to point to who did the deletions. They are in custody now."

  "Have them charged with attempted genocide."

  He looked at me for a moment, but nodded. He could see Midgard was still weighing heavily on me, and anyone trying to get other people killed en-masse were not going to get any leniency from me.

  "Will do. Who has jurisdiction?"

  "American sector until they enter the Duchy, where jurisdiction becomes mine, and the charge will change to crimes against humanity by attempted genocide. If they get tried and sentenced before they enter the Duchy, I'll abide by the decision."

  "And if they don’t?"

  "We'll hold a quick trial, verify Jane's evidence, allow them to present a defense, and leave them on a planet with no way off."

  "What if they have a defense?"

  "Depends on what it is. If its legal verbiage designed to exploit a technica
lity, the lawyers will find themselves on the planet with their clients. As far as I'm concerned, whoever did this, has done the same thing as line people up against a wall, and shoot them. The fact we prevented the shooting is irrelevant. The intent was there to kill a planet full of people. The punishment will fit the crime."

  "Should I let the Americans know?"

  "Not officially. In any case, the American sector is about to cease to exist, so it will come down to the governing body on the station or stations where these people are being held."

  "Or we could simply transfer them to Borgcubia, where they would be essentially in the Duchy already."

  "No, see if the Americans care. If they do, they can try them. If they don’t, I will. Any chance you can find out who's responsible for all the other communities left behind? I'd like to charge them as well."

  "We've found a few so far. Enquiries are on-going."

  "Keep me advised."

  "We're ready to go," said Jane.

  I waved Dick out, and followed Jane onto the Bridge.

  The first city to try and boost into orbit had been evacuated except for some key people to monitor things. In theory, all we had to do was get underneath and push up. In practice was something completely different. The cities had been designed to be ninety five percent under water, and so they were buoyancy neutral towards the top. This should have made them stable, and it did, in water. But the stations hadn't been out of the water since they were built. And during the war, they had actually been fully submerged.

  Our first attempt was almost a disaster, since the further out of the water the city came, the more unstable it became. It took us all day to figure out we needed to change the buoyancy point almost completely around, so a good eighty percent was out of the water, before we attempted to boost it into the air. But that far out of the water wasn’t inherently stable either.

  We thought we had the balance right as we made the final attempt for the day. Gunbus was completely submerged below the city, and the change in pressure down her hull as we stood on our tail to push upwards was causing some worrying stresses on the hull she hadn't been designed for. In space, pressure was a constant, unless you entered a gravity well, where you were generally moving fast enough for any stress to not matter much. But underwater, sitting there not moving, the length of the ship caused a substantial pressure differential between the nose and the tail. Jane played with the gravity in each compartment to try and even it out.

  As the sun was going down on the surface, we eased the thrust on until the station began to move, and ramped it up as fast as we dared. The water tried to hold on, but the station came free, suddenly we were in the air, and Jane was frantically setting gravity in sections back to normal.

  We needed nearly every bit of thrust we could achieve to push the city through the air, but fortunately we didn’t need to do it straight up. Tweaks to the thrusters pushed the trajectory over so we were going more on an angle, aiming for orbital insertion as a first step. This achieved, we pushed the station around most of an orbit, and then used the thrusters to re-aim us out into space towards where the planet's Orbital station was waiting to be joined to it. Once we were free and clear of the gravity well, we brought thrust back to a normal tug speed, and easily slid the city into position for the join.

  Redoubt was here now, and she launched tugs and a station hub. We watched the joining up while eating dinner, and called it a day. Feedback from those on board during the ride had varied from those in thrill seeker heaven, to those who tossed their cookies the whole way. But we had proved that barring a major accident, the rest of the cities didn’t need to be evacuated first.

  It took us five more days to boost all the cities into orbit. While Jane and I were underwater, the rest of the team were checking preparations on the next city. It kept us all occupied, and Jane and Aline made sure I never had time to start brooding. And once or twice, it was pretty obvious both of them had heard from the twins when my mood swung in the wrong direction.

  All in all though, it was what we, and more particularly I, needed. A big win. While not quite the same scope as moving the Earth Torus, it was none the less, a major achievement to successfully move so many equivalents of space stations to safety.

  We did however take some time out when something surprising happened.

  "Jon?"

  "Jane?"

  "You want to see this."

  "See what?"

  "This."

  "Which this is that?"

  "This-this."

  She had the navmap open in the Midgard system. There was a single red dot inside the Miami jump point. I looked at it wondering what she was seeing that I didn’t.

  "Can you see it?"

  "An alien ship."

  "Yes. But that’s not why I had you look at it."

  "It’s just a red dot."

  "Yes, but what's it doing?"

  "How would I know?"

  "Okay, what's it not doing?"

  I looked at it, not seeing it. A second red dot appeared in down jump. It moved off the lane, and stopped.

  "What the fuck?"

  "Exactly."

  I sat there watching for a while, as more and more alien ships jumped in, and all of them stopped. For two hours this happened, and finally one of the dots started heading into the system.

  "What did we just see?" I asked.

  The entire team was on the Bridge by then, all watching this strange behavior, we'd never seen before.

  "Oh," said Dick eventually.

  "Oh what?" asked BA.

  "I think I understand."

  He didn’t elaborate.

  "Understand what?" prompted Alison.

  "Didn’t I see some speculation about a nebulae in that system from your war feeds?"

  "You watched the war feeds?" asked Amanda.

  "Sure I did. Jane gave me the speeded up version after I was offered this job, but before I decided to accept it. I needed to know who you people were."

  "And who are we?" asked Annabelle, grinning.

  "The good guys," said Dick enigmatically.

  "Midgard!" I said, trying to get them back on topic. "What about it?"

  "Isn't there a nebulae in that system?"

  "That’s the theory."

  "Well didn’t the highers say eventually the Darkness would consume all the nebulae as well?"

  "They did," confirmed Aleesha.

  "So isn’t it obvious?"

  "What's obvious?" demanded BA.

  "They're stopping for lunch after they jump in. The system is an all you can eat smorgasbord for them."

  "Shit!" said Thirteen, from the back of the Bridge.

  He was gone again before we could jerk our heads around to see him, and having done so he reappeared at the front of the Bridge, and we had to jerk them back again. My neck wasn’t up to it, and I had to put my medical monitor in primary to deal with the sudden pain.

  "You're right," said Thirteen to Dick. "They are indeed feeding on the nebulae. One of our brethren is already feeling the effects. I always wondered how One knew we were at risk originally, as it's not the sort of thing those like Kali would tell us about, unless we asked first. But now I know. We lose one of our number here and now, and presumably across the galaxy we lose more as the Darkness find us via the jump points, where parts of us intersect with systems, or are close adjacent."

  I looked at Thirteen, and raised my eyebrows. He sighed.

  "Yes," he said.

  "Yes what?" asked Dick.

  "Yes, I'm spatially adjacent to Human space. I never could figure out why One said my fate was tied to yours. Now I know. Once humans are gone from this galaxy, and the Darkness have consumed your worlds, these ones will seek out the next nearest food source, and that’s me."

  "But aren't you made of dark matter?" asked Aleesha.

  "They're a dark being. If you are main course for them, I'm their idea of a sweet dessert."

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer and starte
d laughing. It proved to be infectious, and everyone joined in except Thirteen, who didn’t see the joke. For the first time since Midgard, I felt better. I'd known it all along, but having it confirmed that we were not the only ones dying, and it wasn’t limited to just our level of existence, made a lot of difference to me. But I was really glad I was only charged with saving humanity. The burden was crushing me as it was. Saving all of creation would have been too much.

  The novelty of watching red dots feeding wore off, and we went back to work.

  Before we left Atlantis, we watched the line of linked cities jump into Cobol, and met up with an old friend.

  For the whole time we'd been in the system, we'd been watching stations and ships passing by on their way up spine. The traffic was heavy and constant now, as Sci-Fi sector joined the exodus. There was a mix of American, British, Canadian, and Sci-Fi on the move. We were running out of time.

  I held off jumping into Cobol, when a small fleet appeared on the nav behind us. It was mostly Gunbus or Explorer class Privateers, and a channel opened from a familiar Cruiser.

  "Jon old son," said John Slice. "They told me you were doing the impossible here. Had to come and see."

  "You just missed them John," I responded. "But if you hustle, you'll overtake the line of water cities before they jump into Midnight."

  "I'm not heading that way Jon, and you know it. We came to join you. As soon as I saw my stations into Cobol and on the way to Midnight, I was coming to join you anyway."

  "Be safer if you simply headed to Outback with your people John."

  "Of course it would, but where's the fun in that?" He grinned and then went serious suddenly. "You know we have to hold the Azgard jump point, don’t you? Unless you have something planned up spine no-one knows about?"

  "I know. The timing didn't work out as I hoped. We need to hold them up another week to make sure the Door closes before they get to Outback."