“Team is at the windows on the south side,” said the Colonel.
“Can you rig up something to catch them using the crash webbing?”
“Doing it.”
“Alison, do you hear me?” I said next.
“That you Hunter?”
“No, it’s the Easter Bunny, where do I collect your eggs?”
“Homing beacon on tach five.” I checked and there it was.
“Got you. Kill the windows, prepare to jump.”
“Say again, jump?”
“Affirmative, wait for my mark.”
“Colonel, are we ready to receive yet?”
“DO IT.”
“Doing it,” I parroted.
I pushed the drop ship around the building to the south side and then down past the marked window. Glass shattered its way out and started down towards the street.
“Everybody hang on, ninety degree shift in ten seconds.”
I ease the Dropship around and then stood it on its tail, rotating us to be flat to the building with the ramp about three meters below the window, and ‘landed’ us against the side of the building. My own position was above the window so I couldn’t see what was going on. My left foot throbbed in response to its misuse.
“Alison, jump now.”
There was a pause.
“All on board. Home team still out. Go,” said the Colonel.
I eased us away from the building, flattened us out again gently and floated us upwards.
“BA, where are you?” I asked.
“Two floors down from the roof. Beacon on tach four.”
“Got you. How far can you jump?”
“Thirty meters if we have to.”
I eased us into position about fifteen meters off the building with the ramp on the level with the windows.
“Colonel, incoming home team, clear for hot entry.”
“Clear.”
“In position BA, fifteen meter jump. Go when ready.”
There were a series of thumps behind and below me.
“All aboard, move us Hunter,” said the Colonel.
I closed the ramp, angled us upward, and punched in for speed. There was a little fire at us as we sped past the top of the building but it all missed behind us. At one thousand meters, I slowed us and went into a broad circle.
“Where too Colonel?”
“Sending you co-ordinates,” came the reply.
I checked where. Another building top.
“Friend or foe?” I asked.
“Should be friendly.” I assumed that meant if it was not, we were in deep shit.
I set a course and we quickly covered the distance. I dropped us neatly on the bull's eye of the landing pad on the roof, and lowered the ramp. Someone came up behind me. A pair of arms wrapped themselves around me, chair and all. I felt a kiss on the top of my head.
“Thanks Jon,” said Alison. “That was incredible flying. I’ve never seen someone land on the side of a building before.”
“Well no-one told me it couldn’t be done.”
“You did it with style!” She pecked me on the cheek, let me go and headed off back and down.
While I was waiting, I listened to what was being spoken by the rest of the team, and kept checking both the local skies, the traffic around the planet, and via a link to Moose, the traffic in system. There were no threats showing up. Whoever had attacked us either didn’t have back-up, or had decided we were too tough to take on. Either way, I was glad of the break. At last, it sounded like the client had been safely delivered, and our team was on its way back. Some clanking noises drifted up to me, and I assumed our suited troops were back on board.
“Back to the ship, Hunter,” said the Colonel.
I raised the ramp, smoothly lifted us off, and set a course upward. When we were high enough up, I pushed the thrust fully forward and we rocketed up into the atmosphere, and through it. I started sweating again when I realized now I had to dock the Dropship back up into the hanger bay. A funny thought popped in that the Dropship did in fact ‘hang’ there so it was aptly named. I giggled and nearly lost it. Half humour, half terror I think. I got a grip again. I looked up the specs for the Dropship. Yes! Just next to the connect point on top, there was a cam. I activated it and threw the feed on to the HUD, out of the way, but where it was straight on for me to see easily. Shortly after, Moose came into sight ahead.
“Dropship to Moose, permission to dock.”
“Moose to Dropship, permission granted, welcome back.”
I eased the Dropship under the hanger opening, matching speeds with Moose. Then very gently I goosed the underside thrusters and we rose up into the hangar space. I kept my eyes glued to the topside cam view. Slow, slower, slight adjustments to get us fitting perfectly. A soft clang sound as we connected. The pylon took our weight and the doors began to close.
“Good job Hunter,” came from the Colonel right behind me and I startled. I’d been concentrating so hard I hadn’t detected her coming in.
“Join us in the mess as soon as you finish shut-down.” She turned and left without waiting for a reply.
While I shut down the Dropship’s systems, Abigail aired up the hangar space. I was still last one out though, and not knowing if I should or not, closed the hatch behind me. I was completely exhausted and my left foot was bothering me badly. My limp was worse than normal. I used the first fresher I found, then I walked into the briefing room and no one was there. I looked around in surprise for a moment before realizing I was in the wrong place. I had to look up the ship plan to find where the mess was. A mess heading to the mess. I started giggling again and walked into the door frame. Left side, of course. That was it. I had to sit down for a bit. I took a seat against the wall, and went straight to sleep.
“Wake up sleeping beauty!” roused me and I felt the soft brush of lips on mine. I opened my eyes to find Amanda in front of me.
“How long was I out?” I asked.
“Not long. When you didn’t come into the mess behind us, I went looking for where you had gotten to. Come along, you need some food.” I couldn’t ague that.
She led me to the mess and I got cheered in. I must have looked puzzled because they started laughing.
Twenty Two
Sometime later, I woke up in a bunk. I don’t remember eating; or anything that was said in the mess. I had a powerful need for the fresher and had to look up where I was and where the nearest one was. Should have guessed there was a full bathroom attached to the bunk room, but I was still groggy. Not enough sleep. Or too much? Checked. No, not enough. I did the needed and went looking for the mess. I needed something more to eat and a lot of water.
The mess was empty, but there was food and water, so I helped myself. I settled down at a table and chomped away for a time, gurgling down water in between bites. I started to feel human again. I racked my dishes, and headed for the cockpit. There was no one there either. Had I woken to a modern day Marie Celeste? I pulled up the life support system and checked for life signs. Ah, all in the briefing room, most likely debriefing I suspected.
I began checking what was around us. Nothing untoward showed. For the first time I noticed Melbourne had both an Orbital station and a jump point station. There was a steady traffic between the two, although I noticed no activity around the jump point. I guess things being the way they were with pirate activity, not a lot wanted to risk going out into Nexus. It must be playing havoc with interplanetary trade, I thought.
Heavy footsteps came in behind me. I turned and saw George.
“Great,” he said, “you’re up. Colonel wants us boosting for the jump point, and since you’re here, I can get my head down for a while. By the way, thanks for the pickup. That was some very impressive flying back there.” I made non-committal noises. “No seriously," he went on, "I couldn’t have done half what you did. Given how old you are, and your lack of experience, some of us are beginning to think you are some sort of ‘pilot savant’.” He grinned at me and
left before I could comment. Just as well he left, as I didn’t take that comment all too well. If I recalled properly, Savant was usually associated with low IQ and some limited brilliant ability. I definitely had a higher than average IQ and my piloting ability was good enough to miss hitting a building. I forgave him and went back to work.
I turned us towards the jump point and got us moving. I pushed us up to cruising speed and sat back to try and relax for a bit, while I had some alone time.
Releases.
Now was as good a time as any. At home, we believed that any negative event between two people showed the presence of karma between the two. The bigger the event, the worse the karma. We took karma seriously. One of the books surviving from the twenty first century was called “The Wisdom of the Ages, Accrued Karma”. The original book still exists in our main museum, but its digital copy was owned by almost everyone. It was required reading almost as soon as you could read. From it we learned how to release karma, and this was a very important part of our belief system. I’d been lax in letting it go so long, but I figured I had a good excuse. Excuses are not reasons however.
I closed my eyes, confident I would be alerted if anything needed my attention. I rested my hands on my thighs, palms down. Ordinarily, people meditate with their palms up, but I found while I meditate, reiki energy usually flowed, and so I had my palms resting on my legs as a means of using that healing energy. I slip into a meditative state really easily as most of us do, when trained from an early age. My breathing slowed, I allowed thoughts to slow and stop. About ten minutes later, I allowed thoughts to start again. I cast about for the name of the man who had killed my Uncle.
“I accept all karmic debt with Louis Santiago and release all karmic debt into the earth.” I stopped. I was in space, how could I release into the earth when there was none anywhere near me. Should I use Melbourne?
Use Mother Earth. She, who was home to you all before the dispersal, can still receive the energy of your release. No matter where you are.
I started again. “I accept all karmic debt with Louis Santiago, and release all karmic debt to Mother Earth for renewal into good energy, at all the levels, in all the bodies, in this lifetime and all lifetimes, across space, time and dimension, through all levels of dna, attached or not, and through my soul lineage and soul extensions, forgiving myself unconditionally and forgiving anyone else connected to this unconditionally, with healing to be given now.”
I started coughing. And kept coughing for several minutes. Physical release often comes with such a release statement. We were taught to just let it out however it manifested. For me, it was usually coughing.
I repeated the release for the other four pilots, even though I’d only known the name of one of them. Followed by releases for the three men who had tried to kill me on the station. The coughing became shorter as I went down the list.
A pop-up reminded me we were close to the jump point now, so I ended my meditation. I slowed the ship as we came near and manually jumped us.
“Thanks for the warning,” came wafting in from somewhere.
“Sorry,” I yelled back.
I turned us towards the Sydney jump point and eased us back up to cruising speed. I checked out what could be ‘seen’ of the Nexus system and there was no traffic of any kind. I went back to meditating.
Another pop-up alerted me to the approach of the Sydney jump point, and again, I slowed us for jump. This time though, I remembered to make an announcement. I pulled up the combat coms overlay and activated the link.
“This is your pilot speaking. We are preparing for jump. Please return your seat to its upright position, make sure your tray table is stowed and your luggage is securely under the seat in front of you. We ask that you turn off all hand held electronic devises and that your safety belt is fastened securely. Thank you.”
I won’t repeat what was said in reply.
We entered the jump zone and I triggered the jump.
A combat warning went off immediately. There was a Gladiator in red between the station and us. Fortunately it was not very close to us as if it had been patrolling back and forth and we got lucky. I spun the ship one hundred and eighty degrees, pushed the thrust forward to maximum, and got more unmentionable comments.
We were unarmed I thought, all we can do is run.
Unarmed my arse I thought. I grinned.
“Battle Stations,” I said. “We have a Pirate Gladiator in pursuit. I’m running but it will catch us. George, get up here NOW. Crew the Dropship and man all its guns. The rest of you, get to an airlock and if you see a missile, shoot the fucker.”
Our first problem was missiles. Our enemy potentially had twenty, and that was plenty to kill us. I doubted anyone would kill a missile with a pulse rifle, shooting from an airlock, but better to die trying than not try at all. I had to even up the odds.
George came running in and I unbuckled and leapt out of the seat.
“You have the ship,” I said. “Keep running as hard as you can. When he fires missiles, try your best to avoid them, but keep as much distance as you can because if he uses guns, we have no defense at all.”
“What are you doing?” he said to my retreating back as I ran for the Dropship hangar.
“Going to even up the odds. Abigail, can you jam his computer systems at all?”
“Never tried before. I’ll see what I can do,” she replied.
“I’m at the hatch, move the walkway and start opening the doors. We can’t wait to save the air.”
“Gotcha.”
The walkway started moving as I stepped off it, and I quickly slammed the hatch and locked it. I ran to the cockpit and started her up.
“Who’s on board the Dropship?” I asked.
“Aline, Agatha, Alana and myself,” answered the Colonel.
“Stand by for a missile attack. We must take those out before they can hit Moose. Brace yourselves, I may have to throw us around a lot out there. I’ll be lowering the ramp as soon as we are clear of the ship, so get on air now.”
“Understood. Do it.”
The doors locked open and I dropped us straight out. I lowered the ramp and quickly matched speed with Moose. The Dropship was faster, but not by much. I took us up and over the ship, and carefully hovered over the rear hull, not quite to the end. I took a deep breath and twirled us one hundred and eighty degrees, setting us down on the hull. I’d timed it almost right - we were sitting right on the end of the hull, overlooking the drives. Coming along behind us was the Gladiator. His icon on the HUD was showing bounties, so we were justified in taking him out if we could.
The missile lock tone sounded. “Heads up, missiles launched.”
Eight point defense guns opened up. The first three missiles all exploded well short of our shields. There was a pause and we had six more incoming. The defensive fire took out the first five. There was nothing I could but sit there and watch. George took evasive action and the missile went past one side, suddenly exploding as it turned inward. The Gladiator pilot sent the next six off in slightly different trajectories. We got four, but two of them hit different shields. The next attempt went the same, four down, two hit. I checked on Moose’s shielding. It was holding, but only just. We had to hold the Gladiator off so it couldn’t use guns. I took a gamble that it was out of missiles, and lifted us off the back of Moose.
“Brace yourselves. I’m going to try and get you into position where you can continuously fire at his shields. Your guns can’t hurt his hull too much, but given time, we can shred the shields.”
“Stop talking and do it.”
I grinned. I pushed us up to full speed and head to head with an enemy. Like the last time, I wasn’t playing chicken. I waited until just before we reached what I thought was gun range for the Gladiator and threw us to the side. The gunners raked him as we went past. I turned as sharply as I could, and it was obvious right then I had a major advantage in maneuverability. I used it. He had tried the same thing, turning to br
ing his guns to bear, but I was turning inside him. One of our turrets was firing all the time while we went around in tight circles. Suddenly he broke out of the circle and I compensated and put us on his tail. Now all the guns were firing. I kept on his tail like I was glued on. He tried very hard to avoid our fire, but he couldn’t completely escape it no matter what he did. I kept an eye on the shields, watching as we slowly nibbled away at them. At last they went down. I put on as much speed as I could, came along the top side of the Gladiator, and landed on top of it.
I opened a channel to the Gladiator pilot. “Surrender or Die,” I said.
The reply was all expletives, so I took that as a ‘die’ answer.
I unbuckled, and ran to the ladder. I activated my suit into space suit mode, hunted through the suit menu and found a magnetic boots option and selected it. I extracted the air in the top section of the ship, opened the hatch over the ladder, slid down, and grabbed a pulse rifle from the rack. I ran down the ramp passed a startled Colonel and jumped down onto the Gladiator. My boots stuck to the hull. I walked around to the hatch. I selected continuous fire on the pulse rifle, aimed at the hatch and kept firing until the hatch was breached and there was an explosive decompression. I continued until there was a hole large enough for me to get in. Once I was inside, I connected up to the nearest air point, and peered into the cockpit.
The pilot was gone. Fragments from the door must have sliced through the pilot and decompression had exploded the body.
My guts heaved and I threw up. My suit adapted immediately, opening a small hole around my mouth. I doubled over, and emptied my stomach on to the deck. By the time the retching had stopped and the suit had resealed itself, my lips and mouth were freezing cold.
I heard "Pay up sucker!" From the background.
I looked around in the living area, found the clean-bot interface and gave them instructions to clean the cockpit area.
Hero at Large (The Hunter Legacy Book 1) Page 14