Make or Break the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 4) (7 page)

"We've the Destroyers and Corvettes
trashed in the battle to repair. The Brits would like them upgraded at the same
time. If I knew what you did with Unthinkable, I can modify it for other
classes. The Destroyers can be upgraded using the General Custer as a design
guide, minus the assault features. Between the two designs, I can redo both
types of ship. And any others that come along."

"I don’t have the final design, as I
don’t know what Bob did while the work was being done. But I have the original
design. You're welcome to it. Same deal?"

"Same deal." He grinned.

I waved to Jane, and she moved closer.

"Can you transfer the design for
Unthinkable to the Chief please?"

He pulled out a portable secure storage
device. I wasn’t aware anyone used them these days, but for secure files, it
was a good idea. And it saved Jane having to visit the shipyard. Jane plugged
into the data port. A moment later, she unplugged.

"Confirmed."

McLauchlan nodded. Jane moved a little away
again.

"What about you're Drone Pocket
Battleships?" he asked.

"For now, I'd rather keep them off the
market. If something major occurs, and we need them produced, I'll think about
it then."

"Fair enough. And the Drone Clusters?"

"Again, just for me."

"Fine. Thought of some names for the
classes?"

"Actually, yes. I've had it at the
back of my mind for a while now. Can you check on 'Guardian' for the Pocket
Battleships, and 'Hive' for the Clusters. I think of the Clusters as a single
entity now."

"Good choices. I'll let you know
tomorrow if the names are available. Your ship repairs should be complete by
tomorrow too. Not only Gunbus, but your six Mustangs, five Epees and twelve
Clusters. And it's looking like perhaps another four new Clusters from the not
so badly damaged Talons from this morning."

"Nice. Thank you. Send them over to
the station as they're completed. What about the station's damage?"

"Should be completed by mid-morning.
Some of the turrets need work, as well as the hull breach."

"That should work. By the time it gets
back to the jump point, we should have the other side secured. By the way, how
did you come up with so many Battleship turrets?"

He laughed.

"Well, several years ago the Sci-Fi Military
requisitioned three new Battleships. But after the turrets were manufactured,
including spares for the class, but before the hulls were laid, they were
cancelled by a new government. I've been trying to offload them ever since. So you've
my thanks for freeing up a great deal of storage space."

We both laughed.

George was standing close by. He took the
empty glass out of my hand and replaced it with a full one. I looked at it,
wondering how I'd come to have a glass in my hand at all.

George started chuckling.

"What's up chuckles?" I asked
him.

"That’s your third drink Jon."

McLauchlan cracked up. So did George. I
joined in, with slightly more than a chuckle, which was all I could manage
without more pain. Alison stared at us with the look which said 'What are you
laughing for?'

"Alison, the way I feel, if I don’t
laugh, I'll cry."

She nodded. I think she felt the same, but
laughing still hurt her too much. On the outside, we probably had the same sort
of bruises. But internally, she'd taken damage as well. Hers wasn’t just the
hurt of a bruise. By rights, she should still be in a hospital bed.

"Can I have everyone's attention
please?"

Silence rippled around the room. At one
end, I saw Vonda with the Prime Minister I'd met when I first arrived. They
were on a raised podium with several other people. Prime Minister Vantigo, if I
remembered her name correctly, stepped up to the vid position. Her image
appeared on screens around the room.

"Thank you all for coming this
evening. We're here to celebrate our deliverance from an invader. We celebrate
the safe defense of this system, this planet, and our Orbital facilities.
Please raise your glasses."

Everyone in the room raised a glass of some
sort.

"The victorious dead."

"The victorious dead," everyone
repeated, and drank.

"We thank the military personnel who
pulled out such a magnificent victory this morning, from what looked like
certain defeat. The enemy threw twice the force we expected at us, and our
defenses held. They threw a second force at us, and through the courage and brilliance
of one man, our defenses held again. The last enemy force was soundly thrashed
by his new fleet. I give you, Admiral Jonathon Hunter."

The room went crazy, and many heads turned in
my direction. I let it wash over me without really feeling anything. I was
numb, I suddenly realized. Well, not completely numb. I ached in a lot of
places, mainly down my left side. But emotionally, nothing.

The Prime Minister looked at me, with a
gesture to join her on the podium. I shook my head, gently and sadly.

My gaze was drawn to an older man to the
edge of my sightline, as I looked at the podium area. He was leaning on an
antique walking stick, and staring at me. We made eye contact for a moment, before
he looked away. I shivered.

Vonda stepped up to the vid position.

"Admiral Hunter won't be saying a few
words. For those who aren't aware, he was the target of an assassination
attempt this evening." Shock rippled through the crowd. "On his
behalf, I thank you for the sentiments expressed here tonight, but he would
remind you that without the full support of everyone here, the victory would
not have been ours. This was a team effort. The military did the hard work, but
the Shipyards and munitions factories gave us what we needed to do the job.
Every single person here contributed in some way. You should all be
congratulated."

The room cheered and clapped. The party
went back into full swing. George took my empty glass again, and swapped it for
a full one. People started introducing themselves and offering personal thanks.
I shook hands, listened to words I didn't hear, and let Jane move them on as
fast as decorum would allow.

"So you’re the one," said a
voice.

I looked up, into the face of the old man
who'd been staring at me. Something made me stand up and face him properly.

"Have we met?" I asked him,
pretty sure we hadn't.

"No, we've not met. But I know you.
You’re the one who killed my older sons, put my granddaughter in prison, and
today killed my younger son. Now it's your turn."

He placed the end of his walking stick
exactly where the Meson Blaster had hit me earlier, and pulled a semi-hidden
trigger.

I woke up in a hospital bed. I was still
fully suited. I tried to sit up, but agony prevented movement. My medical
monitor showed a large area of red on my left side.

"Don’t move," said a voice.
"You've been shot with a projectile weapon. It didn’t pierce your suit,
but it's probably left a major bruise, where you apparently already had a
bruise forming. We need to check for broken ribs, and we haven't been able to
treat it, as your suit is locked. Can you release it please?"

I shifted it back into a belt.

A doctor came into view, with several
nurses. She made an examination of all my bruises, then my ribs, and gave me a
shot for the pain. The agony subsided to a major ache. Where the Meson Blaster
had hit me, was a deep blue-purple colour.

"I'm going to give you something to
make you sleep. In the morning, we'll see if you need additional treatment. I
doubt it though. There are no bones broken, and as it's mainly bruising, it just
needs time to heal. You should know, your heart stopped for about twenty
seconds after the impact, but your medical monitor restarted it. There don't
seem to be any residual effects, but I recommend a complete checkup at a
medical facility after the bruises fade."

I nodded, and ….

I woke some time later, feeling a bit
better.

"How do you feel Jon?" asked
Alison.

I turned my head to look at her. Amanda and
Aleesha were sitting with her. They looked like they'd been up all night. A
quick check of the time told me they had been. I'd slept for nearly eight
hours.

BA was standing in the doorway, hands on
guns, ready to kill anyone who looked at her wrong. Or so it seemed from her
stance.

"I'm not sure."

I slowly sat up in bed. Amanda jumped up,
and jammed some pillows in behind me. It hadn't hurt. There was just the ache
now.

"Better I think," I said.
"The agony I felt when I first woke up is gone. Just the ache remains.
What happened?"

"That old codger shot you with a
hidden projectile gun," said Amanda. "You went down hard, and for a
moment we all thought you were dead. But your suit was intact. The bullet
didn’t penetrate. It actually bounced off your suit back into the barrel of the
gun, and severely hurt the old man's hand. The walking stick the gun was hidden
inside, disintegrated. As bullets go, it was a very large one. Without the
suit, the resulting wound would have had you bleeding out too fast to get you
help in time."

I checked my suit. It was down to eleven
percent integrity. And it wasn’t recovering. I’d need a new one by the look of
it.

"What happened to him?"

"I killed him," came from the
doorway.

"BA practically tore his head
off," said Aleesha. "He was dead before he hit the floor. Nose driven
up into his brain."

I shivered. That was too much information
the way I felt.

"He must have known it was a suicide
mission," said Alison. "There was no way to escape. Not with all of
us around you."

"I don’t think he cared anymore,"
I said.

"Who was he?" asked Amanda.

"Santiago Senior, at a guess," I
answered. "The father of the pirate who almost killed us all."

"We think so," said a new voice,
from just beyond BA. "Lance Freelander, Station Security Chief. Admiral
Hunter, will you allow me to enter please?"

"Let him in BA."

"Thank you." He walked up to the
bed. "Firstly, my apologies for my failure. It never occurred to me that
anyone still used projectile weapons. The scans missed the walking stick.
Second, my continued apologies for not having a security escort when you left
your ship. I'd been informed of the previous attempts on your life, but we'd no
warning of any likelihood of an attempt here. I should've considered it anyway.
Third, we're still tracking down your assassins, but Santiago Senior is the
most likely suspect. The ID on the corpse is obviously false. According to
records, Santiago vanished from the Australian sector months ago."

He must have left before I left Outback,
and not returned.

"You should be happy to know, as of a
few hours ago, you no longer have a bounty on your head. It appears the Bounty
Hunters Guild has been informed that none of the previous bounties can now be
paid. I think you can assume that the Santiago family won't be causing you any
more trouble."

I sighed. I'd never wanted the trouble.
Given the choice, I'd have been home begging to be allowed to fly once in a
while. The arrogance of stupid people never ceased to amaze me. If they'd only
left me alone, I'd have settled down on Outback Orbital after the first attack,
and would still be there, immersed somehow in the family business.

"You can keep the guns you took from
the first assassins. I had them adjudicated to you." I nodded. "The
recordings of the first assassination attempt vanished. So there's no official
record of you taking any illegal action. Not that we were going to follow that
up anyway. Your actions shocked a few people on the oversight committee, but I
showed them the vid of you being attacked by that Mercenary team, and they took
my point. Your shooting put a damper on the celebration by the way. It didn’t
last very long after that. There's been a press release saying you were not
badly injured, and should be released from hospital tomorrow."

"Thanks," I said.

He left, promising to have a subtle
security presence around me, until I was back on my ship.

The girls hugged me gently, and resumed
their seats.

"Did you get any sleep last
night?" I asked.

"Some," replied Amanda. "We
took turns on the door, while Alison held your hand."

"I did not!"

We all laughed. Alison and I both regretted
it.

I accessed the station system for the local
'tool man', and ordered a new suit belt, with three boosters. I was promised
almost immediate delivery. I removed my existing belt.

"What's up with your belt?" asked
Aleesha.

"Almost dead," I said. "Eleven
percent, and not regenerating."

"Ouch," said the twins together.

"Don’t remind me."

I lay there against the pillows for a
while, in silence, eyes closed. I did the release for Santiago Senior, and
coughed myself into a higher state of pain for the next ten minutes. A nurse
came in, saw my face, and gave me another pain killer.

The girls watched me the whole time, but
said nothing.

The local 'tool man' turned up himself,
carrying more than the expected four packages. He unpacked my new belt, but
paused before he handed it to me.

"Admiral," he began. "Those
of us who live and work on this station owe you a great deal. But for you, we
would all likely be dead now, or marooned dirtside with no livelihoods."
He held up the belt. "This is something I've been tinkering with for a
long time. One of the big drawbacks of the standard suit is it can't handle the
momentum of a hit. The hit itself is what it's designed to deal with, but
people often suffer injuries from the landing after the hit, as well as the
bruising of the hit itself. I understand one of your hits yesterday threw you
across your cargo bay?" I nodded. "I've been working on this problem.
I've solved one of the issues, but the new suit has not yet been released for
sale, as I wish to solve both first."

"Which one did you solve?"

"The momentum issue. This suit will
take a hit from a Meson Blaster, and the momentum is shifted down the suit into
the deck. At most, you get lifted off the ground a little, sort of a hop. You
stay upright. You stay in control. It gives you the ability to return fire
immediately."

He grinned, and I couldn’t help joining him,
although the skin tightening it caused, hurt. He attached the three boosters to
the suit, and handed it to me. I looped it around me and connected the buckle.
A software upgrade box popped up. I accepted it, and waited while it completed.
I shifted into 'slinky red'. On a whim, I went into the suit files, and changed
my Hunter insignia. I chose the Sci-Fi Rear Admiral stripes, and put two
General's stars on top. I activated the change.

"I like your uniform Admiral,"
the 'tool man' said.

"Thanks. What's in the other
box?"

It was a much larger box. He opened it, and
pulled out a gun.

"The 'Long Gun'," he said.
"This is something new. I recently was asked to supply a cross between a
rifle and a handgun. The need was for something easily carried, but much more
accurate over longer distances. I found this from an obscure gun maker very few
people know about."

He passed it over. The girls crowded around
to look at it. It was finely balanced, and easy to sight in. The holster for it
appeared on the suit as it touched my hand.

"You will notice that the holster is
different. This is designed for the fast draw. Some Americans are obsessed with
the speed they can draw and shoot. This is one answer for them. For you, the
next time someone tries to kill you, you can be firing back before your hop
ends. Within a station, this will give you enough range to hit even someone
using a sniper rifle. Dirtside though, the sniper will still have the
advantage." I nodded.

"What do I owe you?"

"Oh dear, I seem to have forgotten the
invoice. I'll send it to you when I return to my store."

He gathered up the packaging, handed me
three extra charge units, and the bolt to convert it to a full laser, shook my
hand, and left.

I passed the gun to Amanda. She practiced
draws and lining up to fire. She grinned, and passed it to Aleesha, who did the
same. Amanda swapped with BA, and BA gave it a work out.

A ping came in from O'Neil. Midgard had
sent in a new fleet that morning. Same result as the previous one. Clearing the
jump point had begun again. I thanked him for letting me know, and told him as
soon as Gunbus was ready, we would be on our way.

"Who was that?" asked Alison.

"O'Neil. Midgard sent my fleet some
breakfast this morning."

The girls laughed.

I made an effort to straighten up, swung
sideways with a groan, placed my feet on the floor, and eased myself up.

"Jon?" It sounded like Alison.

"What?"

"Do you know where you are?"

"In bed?"

"No, you're on the floor."

No wonder it felt hard.

"What happened?"

"You passed out the moment you stood
up."

"Ah."

Gentle hands picked me up, and leaned me
against the bed. My head was spinning. The medical monitor went primary, and
recommended something I couldn’t pronounce. I accepted it. My head settled down
to an ache, but my vision cleared.

I pushed off again, and this time stayed
upright.

"How do we get you out of here without
anyone seeing you?" asked Amanda.

A file pulsed in. It was a suit definition.
I activated it.

The girls cracked up.

Alison had the look of someone who was
baring her pain in the interests of a good laugh. She led me into the bathroom,
and I looked in the mirror.

Jane looked back at me. There was a small
hole between the lips so I could be heard, but otherwise it was if I was
wearing a mask.

I looked down. I had breasts, and there was
no bulge around the groin region, which accounted for why I felt oddly
compressed down there.

The girls were still laughing when I came
out.

"You make a great girl boss,"
said BA.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up."

"We will," laughed Aleesha.

I pinged hospital administration for my
bill. The Administrator replied immediately saying it had been taken care of.
When the docs released me, I was free to go.

I wasn’t waiting for the docs. I had work
to do.

The girls were down to chortles now.

I had the twins stand on each side of me,
and we put arms around each other, so they could support me as I walked.

BA led us out, with Alison limping behind.
I made a huge effort not to limp. The facial expression was fixed, so no-one
would know I was in serious pain.

We made it to Custer without any undue
attention, beyond the normal looks the girls received when walking around on a
civilian station.

Once inside the Armoury, I shifted my suit
back to 'slinky red'. I had to rest three times on the way up the staircase.
The girls started to take me into my suite, but I stopped them, and made them
take me to the Bridge.

I sat in my chair, and breathed a sigh of
relief. Jeeves dropped my pad into the holder on the side of the chair, along
with a bottle of water. I plucked out the water, and took a slurp.

"Gunbus is moving," said Jane.