Crossover: It's a Jon Hunter thing.

by Timothy Ellis

  The long gun spat a single pulse aimed at her chest area, and the gatling gun spat six half pulses.

  They all hit exactly where I'd aimed them, but the shots ricocheted off her, and she stood there completely unharmed. She smiled this time.

  I stared at her for as long as it took for the guns to cycle, and fired again, with the same result.

  "Boss, will you for fuck's sake get behind cover?"

  BA sounded a trifle miffed, and I realized team coms was on. Pulses hit me in various places as I was taking this in, but I stood there steady and calm, taking them. The smile opposite me faltered a little, perhaps wondering why the hits were not bouncing off me like they did off her.

  She frowned, and a sack of invisible potatoes hit me solidly in the chest this time. But I was waiting for it, and was solidly braced to take it. Suit integrity went down again, but I could take a few more of these before it became an issue. The current suit had been designed for Meson Streamers, and not Pulse Rifles, which were the next level of rifle down in terms of power.

  "She's a mage," said Jane. "Don’t know what kind yet, but that was a pure magic punch."

  "I've got this. Protect the guy who is behind me. I think he was the real target."

  "Confirmed."

  I was still firing though this conversation, and my peripheral vision saw Jane cross rapidly behind me, heading for where the man had disappeared.

  The mage was still standing there, and the image sparked a memory of old cowboy duels. I chuckled. She frowned.

  I stopped firing.

  No-one else did.

  "I don’t know who you are," I said to smiley slip, "but you made a mistake. We can end it now before anyone really gets hurt."

  She gave me a look of pure venom.

  "I don’t care who you are, but you were the one who made the mistake. You’re armour’s good, but not that good."

  She reached out, and a bolt of lightning flew from her hand at me, once again the suit took it, and I stood there, apparently unharmed. Off to both sides of her, the shooters with her, apparently without the aid of whatever magic shield she was using, were starting to go down. Blood on the floor showed my team were not using stunners either.

  I holstered my guns. If she wanted to play magic, I'd play magic with her. I didn’t have any, but I had the next best thing.

  "Sword," I said aloud.

  It materialized on my back, sticking over my left shoulder, and smiley slip over there actually paused her next swipe at me. I drew it with my right hand, and brought it down into a front position with the point aimed at her, where I added my left hand. It was still looking like not a Katana, especially because the Tsuba had an image of Kali on it, and not something Japanese. The blade was longer than a normal Katana. But then, I'm bigger than a normal Japanese Samurai ever was.

  "Seriously?" she said, throwing another magic punch at me.

  This time, none of the energy of the punch hit me at all. The sword glowed for a moment instead.

  Her eyes went wide, but her mouth became a hard straight line across her face, which the eyes followed to form the look of someone now seriously pissed off. Someone not accustomed to being defied, and not accustomed to having to really fight. In fact, I had the impression she only considered her own kind as worthy of fighting. Now I'd pushed her buttons though, I was apparently worth some effort.

  We started towards each other at the same moment, as a sword appeared in her hands from thin air. I lifted my sword into a strike position as she readied her own weapon.

  We met in the middle, pulses crisscrossing around us, swords clashing and flashing with Magic, and she attempted to punch me in the gut with her off hand, but my suit took it without issue.

  She was obviously skilled, but it didn’t matter. My sword wasn't really a sword. It was Kali's sceptre, and you could call it god-power pretending to be a sword.

  Her magic sword didn’t stand a chance, and her eyes registered shock as my sword went straight through hers, leaving a red line across her middle, and most of her sword arm falling to the floor. She stumbled back, but didn’t bother to look at the damage, as she sent another magic punch at me.

  My suit took it this time, my sword coming up and back from the first stroke, and seconds later, her head was bouncing on the floor, and her body collapsing where it was.

  One last pulse hit my suit, before all firing stopped.

  Seventeen

  The sword vanished from my hand, as did the scabbard on my back.

  "What the hell just happened?" demanded Alison.

  "Absolutely no bloody idea," I said, still looking down at the headless corpse at my feet.

  The team all came out from whatever their cover had been, and we surveyed the damage together. A dozen men in armour I didn’t recognise were all down, and looking quite dead from where I was standing.

  There was no movement anywhere around us, and nothing to suggest station security were on their way. Which could mean this was station security, but at this point, it was probably better we didn’t find out for sure.

  Jane pushed the man up next to me, and I turned to him. His total attention was on the severed head. I gave him a moment, and was about to ask him who he was, when he spoke first.

  "Fray me, how did you do that?"

  He was middle aged, balding, and completely nondescript, but his face was alternating disbelief and horror. I gave him a shrug of my shoulders by way of answer.

  "Who was she?" asked Jane.

  "A Magus I think, one of the Nomads. Not one of the really powerful ones, but still, I thought I was dead, right up until the moment you people appeared. Thanks."

  "You're welcome," I said. "So she was trying to kill you?"

  "She was. I probably would have been dead by now, if it wasn’t for you. Who are you?"

  "Just passing through," said Jane forcefully. "In the right place at the wrong time, and not too happy being shot at for no reason."

  "The Magi don't need a reason," he said, pronouncing Magi, ‘Mah-Guy’, with a hard G.

  "But you had one, didn’t you? Or should I say you provided them with one. Who are you?"

  Amanda was looking serious for once.

  "I'm Jaiden, a courier, I guess."

  "A courier?"

  He looked at me, sizing me up, probably wondering if he could trust me. Then he looked back down at the decapitated girl and shrugged.

  "Well, you killed a Crux Nomad, so you’re as frayed as I am I suppose. Alright, look, I have some info on the Crux, and their mission to Sol. I need to get it to my captain, Kora."

  Given the usage, I assumed frayed was a local swear word.

  "Where do you need to go?" asked Aline.

  "A ship, the Void Star, in a system eleven lightyears from here."

  "We'll take you," said Jane.

  "It's going to be dangerous."

  "Danger is our business," said BA. "We can handle this sort of thing."

  Her hand waved around the carnage.

  "This is nothing. Just a single Magus. They know I have the intel now, so I’d bet the station's Void Dragon is out there waiting for me."

  "Void Dragon?" asked Jane. "You're sure?"

  Jaiden nodded.

  "I know where we are now," said Jane through team coms.

  "Where?" asked Aleesha.

  "Star Magi, by Andrew Dobell."

  "Is that good or bad?" asked Alison.

  "Most likely bad. Gunbus is parked not far from here, but against a Void Dragon and its Mage, sorry, I mean ‘Magi’, probably severely outclassed."

  "We can hope whoever brought us here has considered that, and we have a bigger ship waiting for us out there."

  Aline sounded hopeful, but I wasn’t sure it was justified. We usually had all we had on these crazy jaunts, so backup wasn’t to be expected. All the same, I made a quick mind plea for a bigger ship, capable of taking one of these space dragons on.

  It wasn’t the only complication, and I mentioned it privat
ely to Jane. We needed jump points to travel between star systems. A Void Dragon implied space travel was done differently here. Jane said she'd think about it.

  "You’re not from around here are you?"

  "Not really."

  "Didn’t think so. You don’t know about Void Dragons and your clothes are strange. I'm surprised station security didn’t pick you up just to find out who you were. The Crux Nomad’s don’t like variables such as unknown strangers on their secret facilities."

  "It wasn’t an issue on the way in," I said. "But maybe we better change for the way out. Jane?"

  "I have access to the station surveillance cams." Jaiden reacted with mild surprise, but said nothing. "I’m passing you some options. But Jon, your red is too loud. I recommend stealth."

  Aline sniggered. My choice of civvies included a bright red shirt, and dull red jacket. I did tend to stand out a bit.

  "Blacks and greys ok?"

  "Yes."

  I picked one of the options Jane had given me, and shifted into a fitted bodysuit with matching boots and jacket. Jaiden’s eyes almost exploded out of his head, and as the others also shifted into casual clothes, his jaw dropped open as well. The belt suit we used for clothes could be used for almost anything, and George had done a lot of programming for the team, before teaching me how to do it. In a pinch, Jane could send us almost anything.

  "Are you Magi too?"

  "No, this is just tech."

  "Where did your guns go?"

  I looked at the man, who seemed to be getting a grip again.

  "Hidden. But easily accessible if we run into more trouble."

  "Good. We probably will. Where's your ship?"

  "Follow me," said Jane.

  I followed her, with Aline next to me. The courier was guided into the spot behind me, with Alison, Amanda, and Aleesha taking station behind him. BA brought up the rear, leaving enough of a gap so she could intervene if anyone tried to take us from the back.

  Five minutes later, we were obviously in one of the dock areas for the station, and a couple more saw us to where Gunbus was docked, main airlock open, and the ramp out. At the top of the ramp were a half dozen men carrying pulse rifles, which I knew to be security droids controlled by Jane, wearing belt suits to appear human. Jaiden paid them no notice at all, as we hurried up and in.

  At the top, I stopped, and cast my eyes around the docking area. Our ship was clearly different to all the other ships in here. All but one of them looked like conventional star ships of a clearly different style, but one of them looked like it was made from black glass. It was a creepy ship. A Magi ship maybe?

  "That’s an Aetheric Craft," Jaiden said from beside me.

  "Aetheric Craft?"

  "That’s what the Magi call them, they’re Magical star ships basically. Crazy fast, powerful, and don’t need to use Jump Gates."

  "Can you fly it?" I asked.

  "No chance, and for all I know, you just killed its captain, so we better just to get out of here."

  I nodded and glanced around once more. There were a few people moving about, and several of them were giving us some curious looks. Time to leave.

  I nodded to the butler droid by the main airlock controls, and the ramp began to retract. The others had continued into the barracks area, through the gaps between the pallets which filled the cargo hold, and once the airlock was closed, I followed them.

  "Great coffee," said the courier, and began drinking rather than sipping.

  Alison smiled at him, but no-one bothered to inform him it came from a different universe.

  I caught Jane's eye, jerked my head towards the stairs, and we headed up to the bridge. I settled into my command chair, while Jane took her normal XO position at the front console.

  "Do you know where we're going?" I asked her.

  She tapped the side of her nose.

  Eighteen

  I'd expected trouble leaving the station, but it proved to be very straight forward.

  I thought about asking Jane if the station actually knew we'd been there, but decided I didn’t want to know. Gunbus backed out a safe distance, twirled, and headed off at the same speed all the other ships were making. Slow for us, but then, there usually was a speed limit in station space. And we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves more than a unique design of ship was going to anyway.

  The others trickled onto the bridge, bringing their coffee mugs, and the courier, with them. Jeeves put a ginger ale down in the holder next to me, and vanished again quietly. Angel dropped into my lap, braced herself for a few pats, then leapt across to the console, where she slid all the way to where screen met console, and padded back to her mat, where she circled it three times, once more the other way, and settled down to watch the view.

  Jaiden was looking a bit anxious.

  "Is this it?"

  "Is what, what?" I said, by reflex.

  "A Void Dragon can take on an entire fleet of Riven ships, and win. This ship is way too small to have any chance at all."

  "Riven?" I asked.

  "Me, you. People who aren’t Magi."

  "Tell us about how they fight?" suggested BA.

  He looked around the bridge, and back to me.

  "Well, they’re fast."

  "How fast?"

  "I don’t know for sure, but, I know they can exceed light speed, by several times at least."

  "Good," said Jane. "Because this is really slow for us."

  "So, ignore station rules, and let’s get out of here."

  "That’ll put a target on our back. Look, we'll probably be able to run, if necessary."

  "Probably not," Jaiden mumbled.

  "Firepower?" asked Amanda.

  "Well, they breathe magical fire and plasma. Hulls can’t stand it for very long. They also use their claws, and can use a form of Magic."

  "Any shielding?" asked Aleesha.

  "Of course. They can create an Aegis like a Magus can."

  Ah. So she had been protected by a magic form of shield.

  "How did our attacker stack up in the scheme of things?" asked BA.

  "At a guess, she was probably an Adept, maybe a Knight in rank. Not very powerful. From the intel I had, she was young, and this was a new posting for her."

  "So we can expect worse?" I asked.

  "Fray me, yes. The Void Riders, the Magi who ride the dragons, you don’t mess with them."

  "Do they have to protect their dragon as well as fight?"

  "No, like I said, dragons have their own defences. That’s why they’re scary as fray. Mundane weapons have a hard time getting through the combined defences."

  "Bloody scales again," muttered Alison.

  Our recent dragon experience was still with us, and I could see her point. The Dragon’s shield would protect it, and if it was breached, the dragon scales acted like powerful armour.

  I pondered the choices. Fight or flight. But perhaps we wouldn’t need to make that choice. No, I didn’t believe that for a second.

  "Our shields should be up to the task," said Jane. "Our weapons are different from the normal here, so they may work better or worse, and only trying will tell which. But if we need to run, I believe our shields will hold."

  "I hope so," said Jaiden.

  I was with Jane on this one. Unless they threw something totally devastating at us, shielding was one thing we could count on. It cut down the available space in the cargo bay a lot, but the crystal which augmented the ship's power was almost certainly much more powerful than would be expected for this sized ship here and now. But as Jane said, only time would tell.

  "Where do we need to go?" I asked.

  "Next system," said Jane.

  "How do you know that?" asked the courier.

  "I've been reading ahead."

  Jane spoiled the deadpan delivery by following it with a huge grin. Jaiden looked at her as if she was mad.

  "Who are you people?"

  He had us there. How do you explain to someone their en
tire existence is just a work of fiction, and we were visitors from a different one? You don't. And in fact, the only reason I accepted it myself was this was just a shade more weird than we were already used to. And Jane. I trusted Jane. If she said we were in a book, then we were in a book. Explaining it to someone else was a completely different matter, and I was glad it became unnecessary to try. Although what replaced it wasn't my preference either.

  "Trouble," said Jane, pointing to the HUD.

  Info popped up next to the new red dot, showing it to be a Void Dragon. We all looked at it for a good long moment, drawn to the fact it was actually flying like a bird did, flapping its wings... In space.

  "Get us out of here," suggested Amanda.

  "Confirmed."

  The speed slider on my chair moved to full. One of the good things about ship AI's is you don't need to do everything yourself, and can leave the actual ship running to them. These days, I only took manual control in actual combat. And it looked like I’d need to. Jane could fight the ship of course, but she wasn’t up to 'crazy pilot' level, and I was.

  "Buckle up," I said, and did so myself.

  In theory, there was no need to do so. The artificial gravity would only fail if the ship was badly damaged. But we'd experienced times where me throwing the ship around as I tended to, could cause momentary fluctuations. And besides, why take a risk when you didn’t need to. Combat was combat, and being thrown out of your seat was undignified, and could actually be fatal in a not responding in time sort of way. So we buckled up. I didn’t bother checking on the courier, as I knew someone would make sure of it.

  It was quickly apparent the Void Dragon wasn't keeping up with us, but this would be closer than I liked.

  "Where are we headed?" I asked Jane.

  "This universe uses Jump Gates instead of jump points. We're on course for the appropriate one for the system we need to get to."

  "Won't it be guarded?" asked Alison.