Hunter Legacy 8: Hero to the Rescue

by Timothy Ellis

  At a glance, it looked like there were six sane pilots, and one insane one.

  "What's all this?" I asked.

  "The Dropship pilot from Homer boasted he had the best record ever for collecting grunts off the ground under fire. Lacey put him to the test, and was very underwhelmed by his actual performance. He then put all the Dropship pilots through the same test. None of them passed it. He's been drilling them all day, and this is a competition to see who can actually rescue the team on the ground under fire."

  We watched as the lone Dropship streaked towards the ground, pulling up at the last moment, and landing light as a feather in the center of the team to be collected. The turrets opened up on the fire coming inwards, and the team backed their way up the ramp. It closed, and the Dropship pulled itself off the ground, and streaked away barely a meter up, guns blazing. It continued like this for a few minutes, leaving the fire well behind, before it tilted skyward. Shortly after, it docked with Custer. When I checked the battle, all the other Dropships were debris in the wind.

  "Who was that?"

  "Guess."

  "Grace?"

  "Who else?"

  "Hmmmm. I'm going to need to promote her soon, aren't I?"

  "I have a feeling Lacey is in the middle of testing that."

  Grace was still a Pilot Officer, the lowest of the low among pilots. Still basically a trainee. But she'd just made the difficult look easy. Of the seven, she'd been the only one to ignore the ship, and be the drop, which is what a Dropship is designed for.

  I pinged Lacey to have them do it again, but this time, at least two Sabres were to follow down any Dropship avoiding combat higher up.

  I moved to a lounge chair, and Jane sat beside me, both of us absorbed in what followed.

  All of the Dropships made it down further this time, but once again, only Grace ignored the fighters, and dropped straight through. Two Sabres dived after her, but they never came into range for a good hit. The Dropship pulled up and landed. The lead Sabre pulled up too late, and splattered itself all over the ground some way away. The second one stripped branches from some trees, and by the time it had some altitude and reacquired the Dropship, Grace slammed four IR missiles into it, causing it to explode, before escaping. None of the others even made it close to ground level.

  Again I ordered, but this time give Grace command of all the Dropships.

  Six Dropships again took on the Sabers, but this time they did so as a formation. The Sabre pilots were caught unawares, and were unable to counter having six IR's launched at each of them at once. The seventh collected the team, and was escorted back to Custer by the others.

  "Grace commanded the lead combat Dropships?"

  "Indeed."

  I nodded. She had a better grasp of tactics than I’d given her credit for. Now if we could only beat the gung-ho approach to things out of her, she'd one day make a hell of a squadron commander.

  "Let's see them do that against Dralthi," I pinged Lacey.

  The Dralthi was a computer game fighter, about the most maneuverable there ever was. It was also a light fighter, not a heavy.

  The result was the same, but several of the Dropships were extensively damaged, and took three times the missiles to take the Dralthi's out.

  "Change the test," I pinged Lacey. "Single Dropship up against four Pompeii air fighters. Best time for a successful pickup, drop to dock. The other Dropship pilots take the fighters."

  Technically, the fighters were outclassed by the single Dropship. However, as a team, they were perfectly capable of taking out the Dropship.

  One by one we watched each Dropship run. Only three of the first six destroyed all four fighters, and only four of them completed the pickup. The last one missile spammed the four fighters from long range, and dropped through them as they desperately tried to evade the un-evadable. It was back in the air before the last of the four vanished into a cloud of debris. And back in Custer well before the others had been. Missile spamming had been an effective tactic, if overly expensive in ordinance.

  Spamming means firing a lot more than is needed to kill the target. It’s a good tactic when a good percentage of the missiles might be destroyed before reaching the target, or if you are so outnumbered you need to reduce the odds really quickly. Or you're simply in a hurry, or want to avoid any sort of long combat. Spamming from a Dropship wasn’t difficult, but it did take concentration and forethought. It was also risky, as the Dropship only carried twenty missiles in the launcher, and no replacement magazines.

  "Grace?"

  "Indeed."

  I pinged Lacey to do it again, but this time he was to fly the lead fighter himself. His orders were to stop anything landing at any cost.

  The first six Dropships all died quickly. The seventh again missile spammed the fighters from above, before trying to drop through them. It was successful in destroying all four fighters, but Lacey had managed a really good hit before he died, and the Dropship spun into the ground and blew up.

  "Again."

  Same result for the first six. The seventh again missile spammed the fighters, but this time instead of dropping through, stayed high, watching the fighters die one by one. Lacey took out most of the missiles aimed at him, and although damaged, he lit off his own missiles and continued to close. The Dropship turrets took care of the missiles, after which the Dropship went head to head with the fighter. A single torpedo took the fighter out, and the Dropship continued down for a successful pickup.

  "She's ready," pinged Lacey.

  "Not quite," I responded. "New scenario. Six Dropships with troops to drop against the team on the ground. One Dropship empty to pick up the team on the ground. Grace flies the pickup. Your choice of starting points."

  We watched the six, attack the seventh. One by one they fell to the missiles, torpedoes, and guns of the seventh Dropship, after which it made a perfect landing, pickup, and docking back at Custer. It had taken some damage, but not a lot of pilots would have taken less in the same scenario.

  "Now she's ready," I pinged Lacey.

  That night after dinner, I promoted Grace to Flight Officer. The party lasted well into the small hours.

  Thirty Four

  A day later, we down jumped into the Earth system. We'd done this section of space four times now, and I sincerely hoped it was the last for a good long time.

  Jane put us on course for the Torus, which we'd be arriving at some time around midnight. I’d already arranged for Jane to shuttle people straight over if they wanted to party or spend the night in a hotel. If there were too many for shuttles, I’d authorized the use of Gunbus.

  I headed for bed, leaving everyone else to do what they liked. Aline came with me, but Angel made us play with her for an hour or so before she lost interest, and went to sleep on the top of her kitty castle.

  Aline and I had just finished getting naked, when Jane interrupted us.

  "Better get up here Jon."

  "Why?"

  "You don’t want to know."

  "Fine, tell me in the morning."

  "No, get up here NOW."

  I didn’t like the tone in her voice, and after a few seconds staring at Aline, we both pulled underwear back on, and shifted to 'slinky red' going out the bedroom door.

  On the Bridge, Jane gave me time to sit, before she showed me what I wouldn’t like.

  She was right, I didn’t like it.

  I took a moment to sigh loudly.

  "Ok, hit it. Light us up fully. Can we make it in time?"

  "It's Borderline on the simulator Captain," she said in a male Scottish accent.

  I gave her a sharp look, and opened ship coms.

  "For this evening's entertainment, we'll be repeating our sun dive from a few weeks ago. Pilots and Marines to your mess's, and buckle up. Medical Personnel stand by for casualties, but buckle up fast."

  I turned back to Jane.

  "Link up our shielding, as before."

  "Confirmed."

  "Bring
the enhanced shields up as soon as you have them ready. And link up the smaller ships as well, and bring that shield up too. Just in case."

  "Confirmed."

  I thought I noticed some tone creeping in, but ignored it.

  The Bridge was filling up now, as people ran in from whatever they'd been doing.

  "Give us the full details Jane."

  "It’s the same ship and captain as last time. Exact same problem. Ship had an engine failure too close to the sun. This time it didn’t even have a repair droid on board. The Hubble array picked up its failure to change course, but once again, system emergency services weren't on the alert. They used the Hubble to find the nearest ship capable of doing a rescue attempt, and it's us. Just as well they moved it a long time ago, or it wouldn’t have seen us with the sun in the way from Earth orbit."

  "I don’t do bloody rescue's," I yelled at the cosmos in general.

  "Yes, you do!" yelled everyone else at me, followed by general laughter.

  I put on my annoyed face, and sat there glowering. Amanda and Aleesha saw it first, and cracked up completely.

  "Tactical," I barked.

  The HUD zoomed in to show the sun, the ship, and us. The sun was between us and the ship. In order to intercept the ship in time, we would need to pass through the Corona first. We wouldn’t need to do more than minor course changes to intercept the ship after we came out. But it was going to be seriously close. Much closer than last time.

  "Where's my shields?" I demanded.

  "Just one dammed minute Admiral!" said Jane in a gravelly male voice.

  We sat there. The sun was getting bigger and bigger, and the screen was darkening rapidly to compensate.

  "I'm sorry Master for taking so long, but you have your shields."

  This time the voice was an obsequious male.

  "How far do we need to go in?" asked Annabelle.

  "Deeper than into the France sun," answered Jane in her normal voice. "But it's not as hot. We should be fine."

  "Let not jinx it," I said.

  "Ka-Plaa!" said Grace quietly from the helm seat.

  Easing your ship into a sun gently is one thing. Deliberately diving in with all engines edging the red line is so completely another thing. It would have been exhilarating if it hadn't been so bloody terrifying.

  George's head popped up as he opened a channel from Custer.

  "Don’t you dare George," snapped BA, and for a moment his mouth flopping open resembled a fish out of water.

  But he recovered quickly, grinned, and closed the channel.

  "Yee-hah," pinged in from George.

  The sudden grins alerted me to how many others received the ping. BA wasn’t one of them.

  But he did manage to do one thing. He'd distracted us as we crossed the threshold into the sun. The screen was gone now. Only the HUD displayed. It really was going to be close.

  "Salvage droid standing by Jane?"

  "No, it's frying eggs on the Flight Deck."

  "Dibs on them," said Alana.

  The tension broke again.

  "Do we need to drop both shields at once to grab the ship?" asked Lacey suddenly. "Or can we drop the main front shield, let the ship in, put the main shield back up, and then drop the secondary?"

  "It would require nanosecond precision," said Jane.

  "So it's doable then?" asked Jackman.

  "Watch her," said Amanda, punching Jane on the shoulder.

  She frowned immediately after, as if wondering why that hadn't hurt as much as it should have. I saw realization of the previous time she had done this also cross her face. She looked me in the eyes for a few moments, as if asking me what I’d done to Jane. I ignore her.

  "No pressure then," muttered Jane.

  We sat there waiting, watching the HUD plot move us through the corona, and the ship needing rescue continue to fall inward. The dots were coming together, but what we all silently wondered, was would we get there in time? Save the ship, sure. But was there anyone still flying it? We'd know soon enough.

  Finally we were through, and the screen started showing images again. The ship was ahead of us, but not on the right angle, and Jane turned us to intercept.

  "Stand by for a major course correction," I said into ship coms. "The dampers may or may not compensate fast enough."

  Jane was rigid, and giving off the sort of concentration vibe that stops people cold around them.

  BigMother changed course suddenly, the speed came off, changed course again, a second of thrust to overcome the pull of the sun, and suddenly the ship was in front of us and coming in fast.

  At the last second, Jane reversed thrust to bring the approach speed down to almost nothing, and our front shield vanished. Heat alarms went off all over the ship. The small Liner came on, our shield went back up, silencing the alarms, the Liners shields dropped, our inner shield dropped, and the Liner was floating down the Flight Deck a few meters up. The secondary shield snapped back up behind it. The thrust came on again, and the movement backwards into the sun stopped, and reversed. We accelerated away, as the salvage droid snagged the Liner and moved it towards the nearest airlock.

  "Medical team, go."

  I nodded to Jane, she nodded back, and I knew she was sending them towards the right airlock.

  We boosted away, Jane turning us slowly for an RV with the Medical station in orbit around Earth.

  I sat back, and unbuckled, and there was the noise of everyone else doing the same thing.

  It wasn’t worth trying to go back to bed, although the Bridge thinned soon after. I sat there, pondering. The cosmos has a sick sense of humour sometimes. Or perhaps it was a Deity trying to teach me something. I couldn’t tell. What I could tell though, was stupidity and recklessness, and I damned well was going to do something about those.

  Carter reported in a while later. Two dead, and everyone else suffering from heat stroke and dehydration. The passengers were once again, mainly children. The dead were both teachers. Apart from the fact that ten more minutes would have seen them all dead when the shields failed inside the corona, all the passengers had been within minutes of joining the two who'd died. The person in the best condition had been the pilot.

  I was annoyed enough to have Jane hack the Liner's computer. I told her what to look for.

  "Confirmed. Cooling was maximized on the bridge."

  On the one hand, this was the correct course of action, since the Captain was the only one who could drop their shields at the right time to be rescued. If he hadn't, their shields would have hit our inner shields, and both ships might have been damaged as they shorted out. On the other hand, two passengers died as a result of his selfishness. On the gripping hand, well, he wasn’t going to be doing this again.

  I sent off an email to traffic control on the Torus, claiming salvage rights to the Liner. I included the medical data, and the ship's logs, highlighting where the cooling had been aimed. I recommended they file criminal negligence charges against the Liner's Captain, and also he be charged with reckless endangerment, and at least manslaughter. I also requested a meeting with the organizer of the trip the passengers were on.

  Dick came back onto the Bridge soon after, and said his old boss had been in touch over the charges, and asked if it was as serious as it sounded. Jane took him through the evidence, and they assembled a complete brief of the entire rescue from all the logs and sensors available on both ships. He took himself off, nodding to whatever process was going on in his head.

  Near midnight, we came to a stop as close to the Medical station as was safe. Several medical shuttles touched down on the Flight Deck, and were brought inside. I pinged Carter to ask if there was anything else I could do, and received a negative. The passengers would all be moved to the station during the night, as their conditions allowed it.

  I nodded to Aline, and we left the Bridge together. Angel was in her usual place on the bed, sound asleep, and Nut was sleeping in Angel's cat bed. We stripped off again, and I lay dow
n next to Angel.

  I was fast asleep before I even knew I was tired.

  Thirty Five

  No-one tried to wake me in the morning. I woke naturally, feeling refreshed, and found Aline had started without me. Angel was nowhere in sight, and I was not moving from this spot to go look for her. I couldn’t even if I'd wanted to, which I didn’t.

  Showered, bright eyed, and bushy tailed, we made it into the Dining Room in time for lunch. No one said a word. Mainly because there was very few people there.

  "Gunbus on the Torus?" I asked Jane.

  "Confirmed."

  Enough said.

  Amy pinged me the latest headlines, and I groaned and banged my head on the table a couple of times. Aline looked concerned, so I threw the headlines to the wall.

  HUNTER PULLS OFF A BLINDER.

  RESCUE KING BACK IN BUSINESS.

  NEW SHIELDING KEEPS HUNTER COOL.

  HUNTER INSANITY SAVES KIDS ONCE AGAIN.

  Aline started laughing, and I gave her my long suffering look. She fell off her chair, and kept laughing on the floor.

  Carter staggered in a short time later as we began to eat, looking exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. She sat, ordered, and looked towards me. I raised an eyebrow.

  "No further fatalities," she said. "It was a close thing for several, but we had them stabilized in care units, and transferred over to the station before dawn. Just as well your medical facilities are as good as they are. And we were here this time to use them."

  "Still want to stay aboard after all this?"

  "Hell yes!"

  She grinned through her exhaustion.

  "Can you organize all the upgrade material and supplies you wanted, for delivery this afternoon?"

  "In progress," said Jane, through the coms.

  "Good. I want to leave tomorrow if I can."

  "Why the hurry?"

  "Personal commitment at the other end of the spine in a month. It’s a long way, and I want time to spare."

  She nodded, and began shoveling food into her mouth.

  I finished mine without further conversation.

  Several hours later, I was talking to the School Tours Director, in charge of organizing the sun excursions.