I nodded, not game to say anything.
"Did you know the twins and Jane are building that digger machine of yours?"
"No, I didn’t. Jane didn’t mention it to me. And apart from the spa and dinner, I've not seen the twins at all."
"They say it's something we should have available in case it's needed in the future. They're building more giant suits too."
For a moment I had a vision of a line of giant suits, firing into a sea of black. I shook it off.
"Jane?"
"Yes Mon Capitan?"
"Consider how to rig the Mole, so it can come alongside another hatch or airlock, and be able to let people pass between them. Digger droids and a force field to hold back the earth? Figure something out."
"Confirmed."
"Upscale the guns for the giant suits as well. Streamers and pulsers. Look up the wars prior to the twentieth century. If one of those armies was to hit a dozen giant suits, I want that army down in the first thirty seconds."
"Confirmed. Wrist gatling lasers as well?"
"Whatever floats BA's boat. Too much firepower is not enough."
"You'll be wanting shields as well then," said Jane sarcastically.
"If you can figure it out, go for it. And you might want to think about how to deploy them a lot easier."
"Confirmed."
There was a pause for a moment, as Aline studied my face.
"What did you see Jon?" asked Aline.
"For a moment, a line of suits firing into darkness."
She shuddered.
I reached over Angel, kissed her, kissed Angel, and turned onto my other side to sleep.
During the night, Jane moved BigMother into position, from which we would make our attempt on the null point in the morning. Before losing contact with the comnavsat, she sent off a number of pre-recorded messages. Among others, I’d let David Tollin back in Nexus know we might be out of touch for a few days, while we explored the Sirius system, which I told him, had worse communication issues than Midgard did.
The following morning, after training and a light breakfast, the Bridge rapidly filled up. Walker, Carter, and her daughter, took seats at the back. Carter looked intensely interested, and I wasn’t about to ask her to send her daughter somewhere else.
"Everyone buckle up," I said into ship coms. "This could be a bumpy ride."
I waited until the sound of buckles ceased on the Bridge, before turning to Jane. A grin appeared on her face, and her suit changed to a formal black suit of the twentieth century era. I grinned back at her, and changed my own to the same.
"It’s a 106 miles to Chicago," she said deadpan. "We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, its dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."
"Hit it," I replied.
More than a few faces turned towards us as if to question our sanity, but the knowing smirks from the rest stopped them asking. One of the all-time great square screens, which had never been remade, because it wasn’t possible to duplicate. Long lost, except to those who braved my ship theatre. We switched back to 'slinky red'.
Jane had the tactical plot up on the main screen, showing where we were in relation to the rest of the system, and the stress lines.
For a while nothing happened.
Suddenly there were a series of major jolts, which even the inertial dampers couldn’t smooth out. From that moment forward, the jolts were continuous.
We bounced around in our chairs.
Someone at the back threw up.
"This is your idea of a bumpy ride?" I asked Jane, the stress showing in my voice.
A really vicious jolt seemed to drop us like stones from a great height, and splat us into a solid ground, before lifting us up again. The noise of throwing up behind me intensified.
"Could be worse," answered Jane, whose avatar was rock steady where she sat, while the rest of us were tossed in all directions.
"Yee-hah!" came through the coms from George, riding this out in the pilot's seat of Custer.
I made a mental note to ask Carter if she had a shrink in her team.
The plot showed us to be more than half way in now, and the jolting began to ease. Which was good, because our shields were showing signs of strain. On two sides of us were intense suns. Not only was there gravitic stress, there was also heat to contend with. Not as bad as our recent sun dive, but still a factor to be watched.
The jolting continued, until we burst into the null zone.
And slammed into a large piece of ship wreckage.
Sixteen
The front shield held, but it was close.
"Talk to me Jane."
"The null zone is real, but it's packed with debris, including the remains of a lot of ships. That was the arse end of a Cruiser which bounced off us."
"What's it all doing in here?" asked Amanda.
Cleaning noises were coming from behind me, now it was safe for Jeeves to move around.
"Everything gets thrown into the eye of the hurricane?" speculated Dick.
"Good guess," said Jane. "Once we passed the half way point, there was definitely a pull inwards. Just as well we weren't using full power to get in, or we'd have trouble getting out."
Grace and a few others looked troubled.
Screens were popping up, giving us different views of the space around us. As well as ship debris, there were asteroids. Near the center, things were calm. Around the edges however, everything had motion.
"When it's safe," I said to Jane, "take us into the middle and hold us there. Send out the salvage droids, we may as well clean up this mess as much as we can."
"Confirmed."
"Mind if I try to identify any of the ships?" asked Dick.
"Knock yourself out Detective." I grinned at him.
The console in front of him lit up as Jane activated it for sensors and data retrieval interfacing. A few of the girls clustered around him.
It took the best part of the day to clean up the null zone, including all the asteroids, some of which we had to shoot to make them small enough to store. There was nothing particularly usable beyond being raw resources. There were no salvageable hulls for example. Just large chunks of what used to be ships. From these chunks, Dick and his ad-hoc team did manage to glean some information, and we now knew the fates of a half dozen ships which had gone missing in the region over the last decade. We even had preserved bodies in storage now, crew members who died because they came here. Once back where we could access bio records, we might be able to determine more ship names, by identifying the dead who were supposed to be on them when they vanished. It was something Dick and Abigail wanted to do, and they found the medical team were keen to help. For the first time, BigMother's medical facilities were put to good use. There were no complaints from the medicos either, so I assumed they were adequate for their needs.
Other than debris, we found nothing. The two primary stars did indeed revolve around each other, and not around some central something else. It was a long shot, but as far as we knew, no-one had successfully entered the null zone and lived to tell about it, so we would have announcement rights when we arrived back in coms range of our comnavsat.
Given our pounding on the way in, I decided to postpone dinner until after we'd emerged. The trip was a mirror image of the journey inwards, except for two things. Instead of going back the way we came, we continued forward, riding the stress lines to a point well ahead of the system itself. There was nothing waiting to hit us when we emerged into normal system space. Also mirrored was the way the jolting occurred, getting worse as we headed away, until it suddenly changed to as it had been on the way in. My gut told me something important had changed, and the shields were well down on what I'd expected, but there was nothing obvious to say why.
I was about to tell Jane to put us on course for the jump point, and everyone else they could do dinner, when Jane interrupted my thought process.
"What the hell?" she exclaimed.
"Hell's back that way," I sa
id, pointing my right thumb behind me.
She didn’t take me up on the joke.
"I'm picking up a distress signal."
"Another one?" A half dozen of us said it at the same time.
"Yes. And you want to know the really weird part?"
"Lay it on us," I laughed.
"It's coming from the same planet we did the rescue on yesterday."
My laugh died.
"How is that possible?"
"Shouldn't we have detected anyone else in trouble when we were there?" asked Alison.
"Definitely," responded Jane.
"It's not the same distress signal being bounced back at us by this weird system is it?" asked Abigail.
"No, distinctly different," said Jane. "For one thing, the signal is much stronger this time. And it looks like it's coming from orbit, and not the planet."
"How could anyone have made it to the planet without us knowing about it, let alone get themselves into trouble so soon after we left there?"
Amanda asked a good question, and no-one had any answer at all, let alone a good one.
All eyes turned to me.
I opened my mouth.
"We are not in the rescue business!" said half the Bridge at the same time, all grinning at each other.
I closed my mouth, words unsaid, and sighed.
"Jane, take us back to the planet by the safest route. It's been a day since we were there. How much trouble can someone have brought upon themselves in that time?"
There was a cough from the back.
"Point taken. All the same, we’ve just taken a pounding, Jane needs to make sure we didn’t break anything, and we need food. And sleep. I don’t know about you lot, but being shaken not stirred has worn me out completely."
I pointed to Angel, curled up in a ball now, and fast asleep, on her mat on the console. She'd seen the worst of the jolting through with Grace resting a hand against her, not needing the support, but obviously happy Grace was near her.
"Confirmed."
I unbuckled, stood, stretched, and watched Angel leap off the console and shoot out the door ahead of everyone else. I could have sworn she was fast asleep.
I followed her out, and everyone followed me out, except for Jane, who was busy getting the ship moving.
After dinner, during which there was a fair amount of speculation about who might need rescuing this time, much of which was fictional and quite hilarious, I decided to lie down.
I was having a particularly vivid dream of the team in giant combat suits, with the suits themselves an exact replica of their nude bodies. They were shooting into the void, and one by one, went down for no apparent reason. Aline was the last to fall, and she was coming down on top me, crouched there in only my boxers, when…
"Wakey wakey sunshine!"
I jerked awake. Angel gave me a swat with a paw, got up, turned in a circle a few times, and curled back up around the other way.
"What Jane?"
"You need to see this."
"Which this is that?"
"The this you'll see when you get your arse up here!"
I hauled my arse up there. Thumping down into my seat on the Bridge, Jane zoomed in the HUD.
"What time is it?"
I asked Jane to annoy her, since it was easy enough for me to check my PC.
"Late."
"How late?"
"Not quite midnight late."
I sighed, closed my eyes and started to nod back off.
"JON!"
I jerked.
"What?"
"The ship."
"What ship?"
She zoomed the HUD in a lot further.
"THAT ship."
There was indeed a ship on the HUD. It was a sizable ship, in orbit around the planet.
"Any ID yet?"
"Yes, it raises something of a mystery."
"Who and how?"
"The who is a Cruiser named 'Homer'. According to the database, she's the base of record for a mercenary group called 'Homer's Heroes'."
"Shouldn’t that be Hogan's Heroes?"
"I thought so too, but apparently not."
"And how?"
"How is she a mystery?"
"No, how does anyone name a ship Homer?"
"Unknown. Could be a fan?"
"Gaud, I hope not."
"Anyway, the mystery is, she's listed as missing, presumed destroyed."
"Does she look destroyed?"
"Not from this distance, but we'll know in an hour or so. Besides, she wasn’t there yesterday. I can't think of a scenario where a ship in orbit could be logged as missing presumed destroyed in a day, within a system with no coms. There must be some mistake."
"Wake me when we come in coms range. Better get Annabelle up here as well, in case she knows them."
"Ten four, rubber duck."
I dragged myself into the Ready Room and lay down on one of the couches. I closed my eyes, and opened them again quickly.
"Did you just call me a duck?"
"Quack."
"Ah."
Black.
"Jon!"
"What?"
"We're in coms range."
"Aha."
A hand took me by the shoulder, and I flinched. I looked up to see Annabelle standing over me. I attempted to stand, but only succeeded in rolling off the couch to land on my left side.
"Jane, rotate the ship so you can pop up screens correctly where I am."
"Jon?"
Annabelle was laughing quietly.
"Never mind."
I pulled myself upright and followed Annabelle out onto the Bridge.
"What have we got?
"What do you remember?"
"Cruiser, Homer, missing."
"This can't be Homer," said Annabelle.
"Why not?" I asked.
"She was reported missing ten years ago. There is no way she could have come into the system behind us, and still be listed as missing."
"Jane, try opening a channel."
"Confirmed. Channel open."
I was about to announce us, when a vid popped up showing the bridge of a ship, with crew in all the normal places. The center seat was occupied by a solid looking man, with Colonel's insignia.
"Nice of you folks to drop by. You took your damned sweet time getting here, I can tell you." His gaze swept around our Bridge, and focused on Annabelle. "Smith? Is that you? What the hell are you doing here? I heard you were dealing with something in the Aussie sector." He checked something on the console next to him. "What the hell is that ship? And why do you have a kid in the captain's chair pretending to be an Admiral?"
"Jack O'Neill, this is Admiral Jonathon Hunter. This is his Command Carrier. I work for him now."
"If you say so Smith. Truth to tell, we could use an assist. We lost a shuttle down on the surface yesterday. My people are fine, but we can't retrieve them."
I made eye contact with Annabelle, who had her mouth open about to speak. I shook my head, and she closed it.
"Colonel," I said. "Can you dock to our forward airlock please? We best talk face to face."
"Sorry, no can do. We have power, but no engines. Got enough thrusters to keep a stable orbit, but not for a docking maneuver."
"Fine, stand by for docking. Once docked, I'll see you in my Ready Room as fast as a trolley can get you here. Hunter out."
The channel closed. I gave Jane the nod to dock us, and looked at Annabelle.
"Quite a character," I said.
"Larger than life, you might say," she replied. "Damned good leader though. If it wasn’t for the fact he was American and senior to me, I'd have tried to recruit him. But Jon, he disappeared ten years ago!"
"Ten years? How is that possible when he's here now?"
We both looked at Jane.
"Don’t look at me."
"Who else do we turn to for impossible answers?"
"Well not this time. Might I suggest you ask him?
"I will."
"Shall I go meet him?" asked Annabelle.
"No, wait here. Jane, send an avatar to meet him. Colonel meeting a Colonel seems appropriate. Don’t tell him anything."
"Confirmed."
Jane rose herself, and padded out. We sat and watched the docking happen, and waited until the trolley was nearly at the access shaft, before we made our way into the Ready Room, and seated ourselves at the conference table.
A short time later, Jane ushered in two people. I waived them to seats opposite us.
"Smith? Damn me, but you look older girl. Life been hard on you recently? And got your star too I see. Congrats."
He shook hands with her over the table.
"You remember my XO? Major Samantha Jackman. Now Mrs. O'Neill."
He grinned at both of us, while his wife looked embarrassed.
"Jonathon Hunter," I offered with my hand out. He took it.
"Jack O'Neill, with two ells. There's a loser out there with one ell, flies a rat-trap of a Frigate, and I hate being mistaken for him."
"That loser," said Annabelle, "is now an Admiral, flying a Pocket Battleship, and in command of a system."
"Huh? You're not making sense."
"Colonel," I interrupted. "Suppose you tell us how you got here."
We all settled in our seats, and Jeeves dropped bottles of water in front of us and asked the other three if they wanted coffee. They did. He took orders and left. Two sets of eyes followed him out, before looking back to me.
"No offense, but I need proof this kid is an Admiral."
"Jane?"
"Yes your Admiralship?"
"Play the vid of my promotion to Admiral please."
"Which one?"
Two people visibly startled.
"The last one."
A screen popped up, and we watched the short section of the much longer ceremony at the London Palace, where General Patton had promoted me to four stars. Jeeves laid out coffees while they watched.
Two jaws hit the table with a loud thunk. Or so it seemed.
"That looks like Patton," announced O'Neill. "When did he get his fourth star? And where was that?"
"That was on London a few months ago, during a multi-sector award ceremony for the end of the Midgard war."
"War? What war? There hasn’t been a war in ninety years."
Hunter Legacy 8: Hero to the Rescue Page 10