Hunter Legacy 11: Home Is Where the Hero Is (9 page)

"What do you mean you lost her?"

"She and the baby have vanished."

Silence rippled out from us, and everyone
went still.

"How can she just vanish?"

"I don’t know."

"Where was she?"

"On Galactica. She was helping your
parents move their stuff off the ship. Her bodyguards were helping move heavy
things. She was packing and they left her unattended for maybe two minutes tops.
When the first one returned from the loading dock, neither of them could be found."

"How long ago?"

"We've been searching for ten
minutes."

"Shuttles?"

"All authorized shuttles are accounted
for."

"Unauthorized ones?"

"None we can detect."

I went cold, in spite of the heat and
humidity. I walked over to where I’d left my underwear, not really aware of
anything else, thinking fast. My suit changed to a belt, I pulled on briefs and
socks, and shifted to 'slinky red'. Everyone else followed my example. Jeeves
started packing up the lunch.

I turned back to Jane.

"Call the Lightning."

"Already done."

"Any mass without an ID moving out
there?"

She was still for a moment.

"Yes. There's a shuttle sized mass
almost to one of the asteroids in orbit of Gaia Six. It has a mining base on
it."

"Can we get a ship with a sled to it
before it lands?"

"No. I vectored the CAP after it, but
none of them have a sled. I put a weapons hold on them, and told the flight
leader to watch and see, but no action without your permission."

"Fine. Let's go."

The kidnapper's demands came in on the
approach to the Flight Deck. They were short and sharp. I turned to Annabelle.

"I want every team in a Dropship
yesterday. Combat suits, but only stunners. Prepare for a full assault on my
order, or when you lose contact with me. Get the troops moving, but leave Jack
and the twins with me for now."

"Done," she responded, turning
away.

Team coms came online, and I could hear her
giving orders in the background. The Lightning altered course, and instead of
going down into the ship, Jane parked it next to an airlock. Those going out in
a hurry, set their suits to full space suit mode, cycled through the airlock,
and jumped for the Flight Deck. Jack and the twins stood by waiting for me.

"Jane, get the Keeper here as fast as
you can."

"Confirmed."

Jack and the twins stood by waiting for me.
Annabelle stopped talking and joined us.

"The Kidnappers have demanded the
Keeper and I surrender ourselves to them on the mining station, in an hour.
Less than an hour now. Any attempt to rescue Sarah and the baby will result in
them being killed. If we're late, they are killed. If the baby cries too loud,
they're killed. Blah blah blah. The straightforward thing to do is what they
want."

Nodding heads. But frowning faces.

"Dick, you listening in?"

"Yes boss. You want hostage
advice?"

"Yes please."

"Fifth Element."

It took a moment, but it brought a smile
out for a few seconds. One of the benefits of selecting what the theatre plays.
It involved being a dead shot, but thanks to Amanda, I was one.

"I'm assuming even if I go in with
guns, they'll take the elemental precaution of frisking me, and the guns will
be discovered anyway."

"Then you'll need to go full on
Deadpool."

I shuddered. Deadpool liked his swords.

"Messy," said Aleesha.

I nodded to her.

"Thanks Dick."

"Break legs."

I looked at Amanda.

"You're a kidnapper. You want to swap
hostages for the people you really want. What's your play book?"

"Is that all they want?" asked
Jack.

"Why wouldn’t it be? If they wanted
more, wouldn’t they demand it?"

"Perhaps," said Aleesha.
"And perhaps not."

"We can assume they want me and the
Keeper for less than healthy reasons."

"What's the end game?" asked
Annabelle. "We can't respond effectively if we don’t know what they
actually want."

"They want the system closed for
good."

"So how do they achieve that by asking
for two people?" asked Jack.

"They don't," said Amanda.

"Yes they do," contradicted
Aleesha.

"How?" I asked.

"You and the Keeper represent the
prophecy. Kill you both, and the prophecy is gone."

"But that won't keep the system
closed," added Amanda. "It only happens if no-one leaves."

"Fuck!" I said.

I thought for a minute.

"Keeper will be here in five
minutes," said Jane.

I sighed.

"Group Captain."

"Sir?" answered Lacey.

"Launch everything. CAP around
BigMother and Galactica. Interdict everything within ten kilometers of the
station. They return to their starting point. If they refuse, you bag them and
tow them away. If they can't be towed, take them down."

"Launching now."

"General."

"Sir?"

"Change the troop's orders. Team one
follows me, and wait for the need to come in. Team two takes and secures the
shuttle docks of the main station. Team six will guard BigMother's…"

I stopped. I wasn’t thinking straight.

"Jane, as soon as the Keeper is on
board, and troops stop moving, undock BigMother and move her to a safe
distance. If anyone want to take her, they'll need ships."

I turned to Jack.

"Colonel, team six is to go directly
to Galactica. Take five as well, and some combat droids. If my father is on
board, have him undock immediately. If not, you take command and get her out to
a safe place, where BigMother can protect her. Deploy your troops to repel
boarders if anything gets past Lacey's people."

"Aye Sir."

He saluted and left, giving orders as he
went.

I turned back to Annabelle.

"Deploy three and four on BigMother to
repel boarders. Two needs to take the station control center as well as the
shuttle docks."

"Moving," she responded.

Amanda caught my eye, and I nodded to her.
They moved as well.

"What am I missing General?"

"Nothing obvious. Missiles
again?"

"Jane, be ready for another missile
attack. Co-ordinate with Lacey to take out the launchers if need be. No messing
around this time. If we get spread that thin, we go for kills immediately."

"Confirmed. I'm moving the Lightning
to a better airlock for the Keeper."

"Fine."

"You want me on the Lightning for all
of this?"

"Please."

The Keeper and I walked into the mining
base side by side. Jane remained on the Lightning. The two goons standing there
waiting for us, waved guns to indicate we should stop. It was obvious the guns
were straight laser pulsers. They weren't mucking around with stunners. As
expected, they frisked us. They removed the two standard stunners I was
wearing. I'd been so certain we would be searched, I'd not bothered with the
camouflage, and left my guns with Jane. I was wearing spares from the armoury,
just because they expected I would be wearing something. They paid more
attention to the Keeper than me, as he was wearing loose civilian clothing, and
'slinky red' made it pretty obvious I had nothing up my sleeves. But they
seemed to be aware I could hide guns on the outside, and anything I had tried
to hide, would have been found.

It would have been so easy to disarm them,
but I didn’t see the point in pushing things yet. They'd seized a wildcat by
the short and curlies. They just didn’t know it yet.

One of them set off down a passageway, the
other motioned us to follow him, and brought up the rear. We wound our way
inwards. No-one said anything. I pinged Sarah, now I should be in range.

"I'm coming for you. Be cool. I'm
sending you a request to give me access to your suits. Please grant it. Have
the suits activated at any time so far?"

"No Jonny," she pinged back.
"They haven’t. We're in normal clothes, with the suits set to ornate
belts."

"Good. Whatever happens, don’t panic.
I'll keep you safe."

"I'm pretty sure they're going to
shoot all of us."

"Even if they try, you and the baby
are quite safe. Believe me."

"I believe you. I don’t know why
though."

"See you shortly."

I pinged her the access request. She
accepted it. I opened up controls for both their suits, checked they were on
hair-trigger, and linked them to mine. When mine went protection mode, theirs
would too, but they still had the ability to change on their own if an actual
threat occurred. Having someone point a gun at you wasn’t an actual threat.
Locking a target on you was. But most people firing guns they didn’t really
know how to use, simply pointed and pulled the trigger. As such, the threat
happened after the trigger was pulled. But the suit only needed fractions of a
seconds warning to switch into protection mode. It was the baby I was most worried
about, as his suit would only take a few fast full pulses. Sarah had the same
protection as I did. But I knew her instinct would be to protect the baby, and
no matter how much firepower they had, it wasn’t going to be enough to hurt
her. Or me.

The Keeper had informed me he was
adequately protected, and I’d assumed he was wearing civilian body armour, such
as most police forces still used. It wouldn’t protect him from a head shot, nor
would it protect his limbs, but he seemed unconcerned. He was after all,
supreme in his faith, and he knew damned well I was lethal without a gun. It
remained to be seen how many bad guys we were dealing with.

I had to chuckle to myself. They were going
the long way around, obviously trying to disorient us so we had no clue as to
the way out. But Jane knew exactly where we were, and was updating me in real
time. We passed people along the way, who stood there and watched us pass. None
of them looked happy to see us, and quite a few exhibited anger. Most of them
were armed with something.

"Hostile environment," I
sub-vocalized. "Guns all round, in unhappy hands. If the gun moves, shoot
it."

"Noted," responded Amanda.

Finally, we were led into a large room. I
counted twenty people around the walls, including their leader, who was
obvious. Had I been going in Fifth Element, he'd have been down already.

Sarah was kneeling on the floor, the baby
in her arms. Standing behind her, gun almost touching her face, was Councilor
Objectionable.

No surprise there.

Twenty guns were pointed at us. No way to
tell if they were on stun or not, but I assumed not. We were nowhere near an
outside wall, so damage wasn’t much of a factor for them.

The two goons who'd brought us here pushed
us forward into the center of the room, and took positions by the door.

I was finding it difficult not to laugh. If
these people actually started firing at us, like as not, they'd hit the person
standing opposite themselves instead of us.

I put a mild smile on my face, and gave
everyone the impression I wasn’t intimidated. I wasn’t, but they didn’t know
that.

"Jonny," said Sarah, "please
do whatever they ask."

"Fighting on board," said
Annabelle suddenly. She'd gone to the Bridge of BigMother. "They must have
sneaked in somehow. Teams are on it."

"Same here," said Jack. "We
have them contained, but I'm worried they brought explosives with them."

"Send in the combat droids," I
sub-vocalized. "If we need to repair some damage, so be it."

"Nothing to say Hunter?" said
Objectionable. "Not even a supportive word for your girlfriend?"

I looked at him, letting my grin grow a
little. There was no point in answering that.

"On your knees Hunter. You too Keeper."

I motioned to the Keeper to stay where he
was.

"Defiance Hunter? Want to watch your
girlfriend and baby die?"

"No-one has to die," I responded.

Objectionable jerked his gun up, and shot
the Keeper in the heart. He went over backwards with blood spurting down his
front, jerked a few times, and went still.

I hadn't seen that coming. The Keeper
hadn't been wearing body armour after all.

I shook my head, and looked at
Objectionable again, who now had his gun pointing at Sarah again. She'd gone
white, and was clutching Michael tightly to her. The little guy was serenely
asleep.

I smiled at her. She made the slightest of
nods to indicate she understood.

"You have three options," I said
to Objectionable, but talking to the whole room.

"Really," he said with a
supercilious smirk. "And what are they?"

"One, we walk out of here now. We
forgive everyone involved. You are taken into custody for murder. No-one else dies."

The laughter from around the room made it
plain what they thought of option one.

"Two, we stand here until my troops
take the whole base, and then you surrender to them."

"You're troops have their own problems
I think Hunter."

He was enjoying himself.

"Situation contained," said Jack.
"Your parents are safe, we have a few fugitives trying to escape now, but
the explosives have been neutralized."

"No problems here," said
Annabelle. "Jane has them under ten gees."

"Are you referring to the troops you
smuggled onto my ships?"

His sneer faltered a bit, so I took that as
a yes.

"I'm afraid your troops were no match
for mine. One or two are running for their lives, but they won't get far.
Nowhere to actually run to after all."

"How do you know that?"

I shook my head and rolled my eyes at the
same time. I don’t recommend it.

"Did you even think to interrupt my
communications somehow? Or are you just completely ignorant? I lead a
professional Mercenary company. You’re a mouse pissing off an elephant, and
just as stupid."

Now he was mad.

"Option three is I pull my sword out
and cover the floor in here with blood."

Silence. Then raucous laughter. My sword
appeared on my back, and silence descended again as I drew it.

"I can still shoot you all before you
get close enough to use that thing."

"Sure you can. But it's totally
pointless you trying."

"It wasn’t for him," he said,
pointing at the body of the Keeper.

"He wasn’t under my protection."

"Fine, have it your way."

His finger tightened on the trigger, and I
shifted our three suits into full protection mode. His shot hit Sarah in the
face, she flinched, but quickly pushed away from him as her body did a sort of
hop, and turning her body to protect her baby completely, she came down with a slight
thump.

He fired at her again, hitting her in the
back, close to where her heart was, a look of incredulity coming over his face,
as the second shot also had no effect on her at all beyond her being lifted a
short way off the floor again.

I was two steps toward him now, sword ready
to use, and striding as fast as I could. Pulses started hitting me from around
the room, and strides became hops. I was still in the air when Objectionable
got his gun aligned on me and fired a third time. Nothing happened except I
bounced a little higher on the next step.

With one swipe, I cut his gun arm off around
about the elbow. Hand and gun clattered to the floor, the stump bleeding
profusely. He went down, desperately clutching his stump with his other hand.

"Amanda, go," I said out loud.

"Already on the way," Aleesha
replied.

I turned towards the nearest gun, and found
the rest of the room not only firing on me, but stepping in to fight me.

"So be it," I muttered, and
instead of trying to minimally maim my way around the room, I let the sword
work its way through twenty one people.

By the time the only movement left in the
room was me, there were forty four body parts instead of twenty two people. I
was covered in blood. Sarah was splashed with blood.

I shifted our suits to 'slinky red'. Damn
me if the little guy didn’t look good in uniform. Blood splatted and all. He
wasn’t crying, which I thought was amazing.

The sword went back into its sheath, and
vanished.

Sarah looked around the room, and fainted.