Hunter Legacy 11: Home Is Where the Hero Is (4 page)

Conversation stopped as we took our places
at the table, and all eyes followed us. My father was at the head of the table,
with my Mother to his left. I was at the foot of the table, with Sarah to my
left, and Aline to my right, with Miriam next to her. The twins were mingled in
with relatives, around the middle of the table. David and his wife had turned
up and were also somewhere in the middle.

Mouths opened to speak to me, but I managed
to get in first.

"Anyone who calls me Dad, will be
shot!"

"Jon!" exclaimed my mother and
Grandma Violet together.

Just about everyone else laughed. Although
I could see some annoyance in the eyes of both Aline and Miriam. The twins
though, were grinning wildly.

"Bit hard to do that without a
gun," said Cousin Fred, several years younger than me.

I drew one of my Gatling stunner's, and
pointed it at the ceiling over his head. He flinched. I put it away without
saying anything. It vanished into my suit again.

"Neat trick," said Dad. "But
is it really necessary to wear guns at the table?"

"Yes," echoed in the room, as all
of us wearing them answered at once.

"Why?" asked Mum.

"Jon was shot after he left the Keeper
today," said Amanda.

Most of my family looked shocked.

"Are you okay Jon?" asked Mum.

"I'm fine. Whoever it was has no idea
about our level of tech. The pulse bounced off my suit without harming
me."

"I was going to ask about that,"
started Grandma. "Is it really necessary to come to the table in military
uniforms?"

I grinned at her, and glanced about the
table doing rapid eyebrow raises. Those of us wearing suits, all shifted into
civvies at the same time.

"I want to do that," shouted
Fred.

The look on my father's face suggested he
did too.

At that moment, the door opened and Jane
entered, quickly followed by Jeeves, who had a grav trunk in tow, with a cat
cage on top. The door closed, Jeeves opened the cat cage door, and Angel came
out, jumping straight over onto the table, sliding all the way up to Miriam,
before scrambling back to me, where she sat looking down the table at everyone.

"This is Angel," I said.

"Awe, how gorgeous," said
Grandma.

Angel started purring, as I tickled her.

I introduced Jane and Jeeves to everyone,
the latter going straight off to find the kitchen.

I nodded to Jane, and she began pulling
belts out of the trunk. She put them down in front of all my family members,
with two in front of Sarah. They all looked puzzled.

David explained what they were, and we
helped them all put them on, and set them up.

"Are these really necessary?" my
father asked.

Amanda looked at me expectantly, and I
nodded.

"Yes sir," she answered him,
"they are. The reality is, anyone who gets close to Jon enjoys his
protection, but they also become a target. The closer they are to him, the
bigger the target."

I noticed him taking in the command in her
voice.

"Yesterday," added Aleesha in the
same command voice, "you were all safe. Today, because someone fired
missiles at us, and took a shot at Jon, you need as much protection as we can
give you."

"Surely not," said Mum.

I sighed.

"Sorry," I said, "but it's
true. Angel was taken hostage once, as was someone I was dating at the time.
They had to jump out an airlock in space to escape. As well as the suits,
you'll all have bodyguards with you. They will look like security people, but
they are actually security droids wearing suits, controlled by Jane."

The door opened and a man walked in. He was
wearing 'slinky red' with no insignia.

"Greetings all," he said with a
smile.

His suit shifted to a belt, showing the
droid underneath for a few seconds, and shifted back to a man. There were a few
gasps of surprise. He waved and quickly left.

"Jane, did we get the new belts?"

"Yes, Zippy did a speed run to
Hunter's Haven and just made it back. Angel is wearing her new cat version, and
the one there in front of Sarah is a prototype baby version. The trunk also
contains six modified air backpacks, which the baby's suit can connect to in an
emergency, as well as Sarah's. Just an added precaution in case they are
somewhere without close air ports."

"Baby version?" asked Sarah.

I nodded to her.

"I have a team of suit developers
doing new civilian versions of the suits, while they figure out how to make
them even more effective. The new civilian ones don’t offer the protection we
need, but the aim is to give some protection at an affordable price. Useful for
example if there's a shuttle accident, or a station hull breach, or even some
sort of traffic accident dirtside. I'd also been asked to see if it was
possible to do versions for cats and dogs which live on ships and stations.
Which they have now done. Angel's been wearing a suit belt as a collar for a
long time, but she now has a version designed specifically for cats. The baby
version was an offshoot of this. It'll keep a toddler safe from just about any
sort of harm, and is configurable by the parents. So a dog wouldn’t be able to
inflict a wound if it bit a child, and the suit would stop major injury from a
fall. They are still prototypes, but should be available soon. I'm not sure
they'll be available before the Door closes though, so if you know anyone else
who wants them, better tell Jane soon, so she can arrange production and
delivery."

"So you're not just military,"
said Mum. "I'm glad."

"No Mum."

"He's Duke Jon as well," said
Aline.

"And the dukedom requires
income," added David.

"Just how did you become a Duke,"
asked Sarah.

I sighed, and was saved from answering as
the food arrived. Once we'd all been served, I rose before anyone started
eating, holding my glass up before me.

"Absent relatives and friends," I
said somberly.

Everyone echoed me, but Fred and his mother
were looking like they wished I hadn't reminded them of my uncle's death a year
ago. I sat, and we began eating.

I caught Jane's eye, and nodded. As we ate,
she presented highlights, and a few lowlights, of the year I'd had. She
included some of the combat, and all of my promotion and award ceremonies. Odd
looks were cast at me periodically, and there were gasps of shock in a number
of places, notably when Gunbus spun into that Battleship. BigMother had
recorded the whole thing, and I hadn't known it before now. Even I cringed when
Gunbus crashed in.

Finally, as coffee was being enjoyed by
most, Jane showed the Bridge of BigMother as we jumped through, and dealt with
the missile attack. I was watching my Dad at this point, wanting to see his
reaction to how I ran my Bridge. He frowned while I was talking to Melissa, but
nodded to most of the orders I gave. Most of all though, I wondered how he was
taking finding out I outranked him.

"So how many medals do you have?"
asked Fred a little later.

"I've lost count," I answered
politely.

Actually I had, but I wasn’t going to go
counting them just because I was asked.

"Don’t be coy dear," said my
mother.

"Does that suit do a dress uniform
son?" asked my father.

Reluctantly, I shifted into my dress
uniform. There were oohs and ahs from down the table, and I made a point to
check my blush suppressor. The girls were all grinning at my discomfort, and
outright laughed as Fred starting counting them. Amanda corrected him when he
ignored the little badges denoting multiples. I let him reach a total, and
shifted back to civvies.

My dad gave me a long serious look, nodded
slightly, and went blank for a sec.

"We need to talk before you leave
son," pinged in.

I nodded to him. We did need to talk, and
he wasn’t going to like what I had to say. Although maybe he'd already guessed.

Jeeves arrived at that point with a cake,
nineteen candles burning on top. He placed it in front of me while the room
sang happy birthday at me off key. Off keys. The girls shouldn’t be giving up
their day job I discovered. I smiled to myself as I discovered the twins were
not totally identical after all. Their off key turned out to be slightly
different.

Then again, happy birthday wasn’t a song
best sung in tune. We just wished it was.

I blew out the candles, but kept my wish to
myself. My sword appeared on my back and I drew it, much to the surprise of
everyone, changed it to the size of a serving knife, and began cutting the cake
into wedges. When there was one for everyone, I sheathed the sword. Fred's eyes
were huge. Almost as big as the cake had been.

We were all soon indulging in one of the
best black forest type cakes I could remember eating. There were multiple fruit
layers, and they were thick ones. Just how I loved it. I caught a look passing
from Aline and my mother and assumed the recipe had been passed along.

We'd hardly finished with the cake, and all
of the girls went blank for a moment, and rose.

"General wants us," said Amanda.
She didn’t specify which one. "Sorry, but duty calls," she said to my
parents, as they began to head for the door.

"Thanks for coming dears," she
replied happily. "We'll see you again before you leave I'm sure."

The twins grinned at her, and I started
wondering what they had planned. But they were gone before I could even get
started.

The party began to break up, and I spent
the next half hour kissing and hugging relatives as they left.

Finally, it was just the three of us. And then
two, as my mother took herself off to bed.

I sat down again where I’d been, Angel
settled in my lap after lapping up all the goodbye pats, and Dad did the same.
We looked at each other. Neither of us said anything for a few minutes, until
finally, my Dad sighed.

"You want Galactica don’t you?"

"Yes. I have Enterprise and Prometheus
already."

"The Keeper said as much. But I knew a
long time ago this might happen."

"You did?"

"It was obvious the moment the Keeper
told us you were the one."

"When was that?"

"The day you left. We received word of
the pirate attack soon after it happened, and the Keeper told us it was a sign.
We wanted to bring you home but he wouldn’t allow it. He told us you would be
back now, and when you arrived, we had to start serious preparations for Prophesy
to manifest. I knew then Galactica would be needed."

I nodded seriously.

"Do you know what you want to do with
the three of them?" he asked.

"Not yet. Enterprise is being stripped
down at the moment. Prometheus is on her way up the spine. My shipyard is being
added to so all three can be worked on at the same time, and not hold up other
upgrades as well."

"I've given it a lot of thought. We've
never had the facilities here to do anything except tech upgrades, and even
then, she's well behind the times. But it was logical to assume someone nearby
had a shipyard who could do a major overhaul. I just wasn’t expecting it to be
you."

He grinned at me, and I grinned back.

"Spoils of war," I said
enigmatically.

"Story for another day."

"Will the crew want to leave
Gaia?"

"Some. The command crew will, and a
smattering of others. Families have already been moved planet-side. Our family
has its own small city on Five. Your mother will move down there as soon as you
leave. Sarah and the boy too."

A thought blossomed in my mind, but I put
it aside for later.

"I assume you want to stay in
command?"

"Yes Admiral."

I laughed at his expression.

"I bet that was hard to say," I
joked.

"You'll never know."

I let my face go serious again.

"When can you leave?"

"Two days, but I'd prefer to leave
when you do."

"I'm not waiting until the last
minute, so be prepared to leave as much as a day early. I'm not taking the risk
of getting stuck on this side."

"Understandable."

"Boss," pinged in from Lacey.
"I could use your help on the Launch Deck please."

"On my way," I pinged back.

"My Group Captain needs my presence,
so got to go. See you at the meeting tomorrow?"

"I'll be there."

Jeeves bustled in, bundled Angel into her
carry cage, and Jane led the way out.