I turned then to the suit program, and started in on clothing modifications. I copied the slinky black number. First I changed the overall colour to a dull red. Then I tweaked the colour until I came to a dull red that was not too dull. Down the arms I put a single white stripe. I added two more. I went into the bathroom to look in the mirror and activated the suit. Yes, that was better. I tweaked the boots, aiming for a less than military look, while retaining strength. I considered the result. A little less slink I thought. I bulked up the shoulders and made my behind a bit less obvious. Next I added epaulettes. I scanned the badges and added them to the epaulettes. I liked it. I saved the design as my own uniform. It had a good padded leather look and feel. I set the suit back to a belt and went into the bedroom. I took a pair of jeans, shirt, jacket and shoes out of the robe, and scanned each of them. Then started a new design and built up a series of layers to make a full outfit. I went back to the other design, copied the epaulettes, saved them as a separate design, and added them to replace the blank ones on the jacket. I stripped down to my briefs, activated the design and went back to the mirror. It looked just like I was wearing my real clothes. Even the pockets were useable. I turned it back into a belt, and got dressed again. I had an offhand thought pop in and created another new design from my sleep wear.
Next, I started on the uniforms. Create from the images I’d been sent, extrapolate pockets, add epaulettes. That stopped me. I removed the epaulettes from the uniform I was working on, and overlaid the epaulette design. Better. I went back through all the designs and did the same. That way, if my badges changed, I only had to make one change and the rest would adapt automatically. I then modified the slinky black to make the same ‘bulking’ changes. The change was subtle, but I felt a little more comfortable with it. I didn't know if I would need it again, but if I did, it was there. I also remembered to overlay the epaulettes. All done, I activated my custom red and went back to my chair.
Amanda looked up idly as I walked back in, looked away again, and did a double take.
“Nice. That suits you,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said. “It looks a bit bulky if activated over my jacket, but-”
“Some girls like that,” she finished with a smile. I grinned back.
“Food?” I asked. She nodded and we raided the kitchen.
After eating, I started into the military manual. Boring stuff but I needed to have read this at least once. Forgetting something was a better excuse than not having read it at all.
“Gym!” I jumped. Again! I think I needed to adjust my sensors to notify about approaching bodyguards. Actually, that was a good idea, and I upped the sensitivity on any approaching object, to trigger awareness of the approach but without actually doing a pop up. I tossed the pad gently on to the desk.
Amanda was suddenly wearing grey gym clothes, her gun strapped over the top. I went into the bedroom, stripped off my outer clothes, hunted the suit clothes menu for the gym outfit and selected it. I look down at it for a moment, frowned, and tweaked the colour to the same as my uniform and saved the new design. I walked out. She smiled and indicated my guns, and pointed deliberately to the bolts that changed the guns from stunner to laser. I put them on and followed her out the door.
A short time later, we arrived at the station gym. We had to check our guns at the door. I assumed however that Aleesha was prowling close by in case of trouble. Amanda led me over to an empty area of mats. She pulsed me some files.
“Those are martial arts programs. We will be going through what each can do, and then you can choose which to keep loaded all the time so that when you respond to a threat nearby, you do it without thinking, using the minimum force needed. A lot of it is automatic. The programs use your PC overrides to move you. All you need is an awareness.”
The following time was bizarre. She took me through many different ways of fighting, judging how well each suited my body and the way I moved. I had no real idea what I was doing, but in spite of that I was soon sweating and my left side was throbbing again. In the end, she settled on the best of them and I set them to activate if threatened. The others I filed in case of later need.
“What this does is give you decent response to any physical threat imposed by a person or group of people. You grasped enough of the basics to take on probably three and get away with it, but don’t push your luck any further than that until you have survived some real situations. The most important thing to remember is to incapacitate as fast as possible and then get the hell out of there. Don’t wait around to finish someone off, put them down and run.” I nodded. The same thing applied in space when you were outnumbered. Don’t stay still, don’t allow yourself to be distracted into fighting just one at a time. Always be mindful of where everyone else around you is, and which is the immediate threat. If you’re outnumbered and can run, run. False bravado can be fatal.
“I need to rest,” I said looking around for somewhere soft to sink into.
“Sorry, can’t stop now. Go wash up and we head straight out again.” I groaned and went into the men’s room, washed my face and neck, and limped heavily back. We collected our guns and left.
Not far away, we stopped at the Mercenary Guild gun range. She had me visit the men’s room there and change into my suit version of normal clothes. When I came out she led me to a firing range. First off was target shooting, first with the right hand, then the left. It did not take me long to get the right hand putting each burst of shots on target. The left took longer, wasn’t quite as accurate, but was sufficient to take someone down. I needed practice. My left arm was throbbing badly by now, but she wouldn’t let me stop.
From the firing range, we went to the assault courses. She put me through a series of courses with different types of environments. I took all the bad guys down, but found that not taking down civilians in the process was much harder. She worked me through them relentlessly. We used the stunners for all but the last range, where we changed the guns over to lasers, and I had the chance on a specially built range to see the difference, and get used to the subtly different handling. By the time she was satisfied, I was scoring around seventy five percent. She made a special point of reminding me to remove the bolts so the guns were stunners again before she took me back to the firing range and put me through an evaluation firing. Here I scored eighty five percent, in spite of barely being able to hold my left arm up by then.
Finally she sat me down, and I slumped into the chair, exhausted and hurting badly.
“You’ll do,” she said. “You need practice, but you have what it takes. Do you know why I pushed you so hard, injured as you are?” I had an inkling, but wanted to hear her say it. I shook my head and winced.
“The time you need these skills the most is when you’re badly wounded and the pain is bad enough even a medical package won’t dampen it. You need to be able to move and shoot when you can barely walk, and then if necessary achieve perfect aim when you have difficulty even holding the gun up. I know I hurt you, but you needed to experience it and understand it. Most people don’t get the chance to experience it until they are out in the field, and a mistake or lack of endurance will kill them.”
“I understand, thanks. Can we go home now?”
She nodded, helped me up, and I leaned on her heavily as I limped back to the hotel.
Along the way she said, “You need to practice everything until you obtain consistent ninety five percent scores, or repeated attempts don’t yield any higher, which will mean you found your level. The higher the better, and the more likely you will survive any situation. I’d also recommend you borrow some long guns and work with them. That’s a useful skill to have as well. While you may be a pilot, a Mercenary Pilot who can also shoot means he can drop into the middle of a firefight and cover a party while they escape. When the pilot and crew can’t shoot, casualties tend to be higher pulling out, and the main reason for pulling out is because casualties are already too high.” I nodded to all of it.
&nbs
p; We arrived back at the hotel and I sank into my easy chair and just sat there. I didn’t have the energy to move, and moving hurt. Amanda went into the kitchen and came out with a glass.
“Drink this,” she commanded. I did as I was told. I handed the glass back and raised an eyebrow.
“High energy drink. You needed it. You want that left-over Chinese?” I nodded. She moved over to the desk and passed me my pad. I took my guns off and placed them on the floor by the chair.
More emails. A new update from the Mercenary Guild. I was now rated as proficient with small arms. I also noticed the bounties on me had gone up to a million. Amanda returned with a plate for me, and I set it on the arm of the chair and ate between messages. Bob had sent me a detailed email about what he thought was possible for modifying a Centurion. I replied saying ‘more speed’. The rest were what I wanted. The hull seemed basically the same although it looked like all the dimensions had expanded a bit. A few minutes later, he pinged me saying that if I wanted more speed he had to go up another level of power plant, and that would reduce the cargo bay down from twelve pallets to only four. I pinged back I could live with that trade-off. At best, if I tried to trade with this ship, I’d be limited to small amounts or courier work. I couldn’t see it being a problem. If I really decided to trade, I’d get a decent trade ship. I went back to the basics manual. And dozed off.
The ping woke me up. I jerked in the chair and groaned. It was Bob again, stating an email was on the way and did this meet my requirements? I pulled up the email and threw the ship design onto the main room hollo screen. Amanda perked up and came over to look. At first glance there was no real difference between this ship and a Centurion. To compare I threw up the standard Centurion as well, and differences became apparent immediately. The new ship was longer, wider, higher and considerably more heavily gunned. Its speed was a good third higher, and it had almost double the shield strength. A notation stated that a gun capacitor had been added to allow a buffer between energy reserves and gun usage so that even if other systems drew more heavily on the energy system, the guns could still keep firing longer than they normally would. All in all, a nice lethal looking ship. I grinned at Amanda. She grinned back, but I could tell she didn’t really know what I was grinning at and just reacting to me. She went back to whatever she was doing.
I dropped the display and returned to the pad. Next I looked at the pricing. The modifications doubled the price of the standard new ship, and the fittings, with full launchers and reloads, added another fifty percent. The standard Centurion was listed as forty percent dearer than the standard Gladiator. So roughly speaking, the new ship was worth about the same as five standard Gladiators. But the five Gladiators were all damaged. They also had much of their fittings still intact. So overall, they should be worth about a straight swap. I continued down the figures and found that Bob had arrived at the same answer and suggested it.
The math was doing my head in.
I pinged him “Do it.” He pinged me back a store to visit the following morning where I could select a bed. Bed. Yes, I needed bed. But what I really needed more than that was a hot spa. The hotel menu popped up with its amenities list. There was a private spa on this floor, currently vacant. Did I wish to book it? I did.
“Fancy a spa bath?” I said to Amanda. She grinned.
“When?”
“Now?”
“Let’s go.”
I fixed the location of the spa in my mind, moved the guns back to their chargers, and we headed directly there. Aleesha met us there with a grin on her face. I led them in, shut the door, and code locked it so we would not be interrupted. In a moment, the three of us stood in our underwear and belts, another moment and we were just in belts, and then all that was visible was three heads and a lot of bubbles. I relaxed in the heat and just sat back and let the warmth flow through me. I should have thought of this days ago.
Eighteen
I’d gone to bed with Aleesha, and woke up with Amanda. No, I’m not clarifying that again, think what you want.
After showers, breakfast and emails, or in my case, two of the three, Amanda and I headed out to the bed store.
“Why do we need to go to a bed store?”
“I need a bed.”
“You’re just up from a bed.”
“Yes, well I need to lie down again on different beds.”
“You don’t need a reputation for bed hopping.” I laughed.
We arrived at the store and I explained I needed to get a bed to be supplied to the shipyard for fitting to a new ship. They asked what kind, I said the kind that someone with bruising down the left side would find comfortable. I also said that credits were not a concern. I thought Bob had assumed I’d go for the most supportive bed I could find, and it would likely be on the high end of prices. If he hadn’t, I’d pay the difference. I spent the next hour bouncing around from one bed to the next. Amanda followed me around, also trying them out. I think it amused us both that the salesperson seemed to think we were a couple. Amanda even went to the stage of replying “Yes dear” a few times to my comments and then spoiling the effect by grinning.
At last, I settled on a bed type. Size? I consulted the specs for the new ship. Surprisingly, the living area was bigger, although with the extra dimensions of the ship, I shouldn’t have been surprised. It allowed a Queen sized bed, where I thought I’d be restricted to a long single. I ordered a Queen, and had them ping the invoice over to Bob. Before we had even left the store, he pinged back an ok for me, and instructions for the store.
I decided while we were out and about, it was high time I had some shopping therapy. I said as much to Amanda, she laughed. Over the next few hours we did the rounds of the shopping levels of the station, stopping at odd shops and checking things out. I found a few useful items which I had delivered to the hotel, found a travel sled that would hold all my finery and other personal stuff when I needed to move out of the hotel, also delivered, and we had an early lunch. We were just getting up to leave when suddenly Amanda went rigid. Her eyes glazed, then she turned and beckoned to me.
“Mission alert. We have to go to the hotel, pick up your laser bolts and get to our ship as fast as possible.”
I paid the bill for lunch and we left as fast as I could limp, which was admittedly a reasonable speed. The spa the night before had definitely helped. We dashed into the suite. I grabbed all the charge packs, and the two laser bolts, and added them to my belt. We rushed straight out.
Nineteen
The Merc’s Military Transport was at one of the external docking ports. The Colonel was waiting for us.
“You’re up Hunter. We need to be moving right now. Get to the cockpit and get us out of here.” I gulped.
“Follow me,” said Amanda and led the way for me. It was a lot larger ship than I’d been on so far. I was soon lost, but somehow we ended up in the cockpit above the lock, at the front of the ship. I looked out the sides and could see other ships docked next to us. I was going to have to back us out.
“Oh shit,” I said softly. I sat down in the pilot’s seat, adjusted it, strapped in and pulsed my overlays and preferences to the ship computer.
“Greetings Pilot, whom do I have the pleasure of working with?” said a voice.
I looked around, but Amanda was gone.
“I’m the ships AI. Call me Betty.”
“Hi Betty. I’m Jonathan Hunter.”
“You seem a bit young for a Pilot, if you don’t mind me saying.” I didn’t, I felt it.
“Only one available it seems.”
“HUNTER, GET US MOVING!” floated in from the hatch behind me.
“What prep needs doing?” I asked Betty, feeling more than a little stupid.
“All done young sir, ready to disconnect from the station.”
“What is the ship’s name?” I asked.
“Moose.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you’re not kidding me.” That
did not get a reply. I opened a channel to the station.
“Sydney station from Moose, ready to undock,” I said.
“Moose from Sydney station, permission granted, priority clearance to jump point granted.”
“Sydney station from Moose, undocking this time.”
“Moose from Sydney station, undock understood.”
I put the channel on standby.
“Can you back us out of here?” I asked Betty. “If I do it, there will probably be paint loss.”
There was no reply. Unexpectedly, since I had no idea what to expect, there was a series of loud clunks from underneath me, and I practically wet myself. The docking clamps released. Power and water connections released. We were free and clear. The front thrusters fired gently and the ship started moving backwards. Meter by meter we reversed until at last we were well clear of the station and any other ship.
“Manual control please.”
The thrusters stopped and for a moment we hung there in space. I twirled us to point towards the jump point, and pushed the thrust forward to the stops. We slowly gained speed. This wasn’t a fighter, but all the same, it did have some legs. I looked for what else it had. The shielding seemed good, although I’d seen they were not much better than a fighter’s shields. There were no weapons of any kind. The ship could run if it had warning and enough time. But fighting was out of the question.
I brought up my HUD overlay. Instantly the HUD display sharpened, and some coloured ships stood out. I took some time to check out what I could see of the whole system. Down by the planet, there was a lot of civilian traffic, all in blue. Among them was an orange Bounty Hunter in orbit, not showing an active bounty hunt. He had six kills to his credit. There was a light stream of ships coming and going between the planet and the station. None of them were military, mostly freighters of some kind. But several showed up light orange with minor bounties on their heads, which surprised me. The asteroid belt had ships dotted around, presumably miners, and a small station. I focused back towards the jump point. There was nothing between us.
Hero at Large (The Hunter Legacy Book 1) Page 12