Make or Break the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 4) (6 page)

We docked at the Avon Orbital a little
after seven.

I was in the shower when George pulsed me a
suit file for approval. After drying off, and pulling on briefs and socks, I
activated the file to see what he'd done.

'Slinky red' became 'swanky red'.

He'd taken the Dress uniform Annabelle and
I'd been sent, and combined it with 'slinky red' to create a new dress uniform
everyone else could wear. It looked like the Sci-Fi dress uniform, but was in
the Hunter dull red colour, with three white stripes down the sleeves. I liked
it, and told George. I made up an epaulette with just the large ship captain
badge on it, only bigger than normal, and sent it, and the 'swanky red', to
Jane. I added it to my uniforms collection, for future use.

"Confirmed," I heard Jane say
through the ship coms.

I set my suit to Sci-Fi Dress and wandered
out to find Angel. She wasn’t in my suite at all, and I tracked her down to her
pad on the Bridge console. She was fast asleep, so I didn’t bother her. I
headed down to the Rec Room on Deck Two.

Amanda and Aleesha were waiting there, and
for the first time I saw medal ribbons on them.

"Why don’t you wear your ribbons on
your normal uniforms?" I asked.

"Just never did," said Amanda.
"The suit is normal wear, and apart from rank, nothing else is needed.
Within the team, flaunting medals doesn’t achieve anything. Truth be told, we
don’t need the rank insignia either."

"What she said," added Aleesha
with a grin.

"You will from now on. We're taking
troops with us in case stations need retaking. You may find yourselves in
command of troop units. They'll need to see rank insignia. Even on board ship,
the fifty who move in downstairs need to know you're officers from moment one.
You should pass that on to the others. Until we get this war done with, showing
rank is necessary."

"Confirmed," said Amanda. Aleesha
giggled, and we both joined her.

The others came in progressively. I
absently noted that everyone had tooled up, over their Dress uniforms. I'd felt
strange doing it, but also felt compelled to. Looks like I wasn’t the only one.

Just before eight, we all trooped out
through the Cargo Bay.

My danger proximity alarm went off the
moment I stepped on the top of the ramp, my suit shifted to full coverage, and
I took a blow to the left temple that cartwheeled me backwards, landing on my
left side.

Ten handguns roared seconds later. There
was a thump in the distance. My medical monitor immediately gave me pain
relief, and I went fuzzy and giddy for a moment.

"You alright Jon?" asked
Annabelle.

"Yes," I replied. "I think
so."

I didn't move. Neither did my suit change
back.

"Are you getting up?" asked
Amanda.

"No, I'll stay here for a while. I like
it down here. It's very peaceful."

BA hauled me back up onto my feet. My suit
still hadn't changed. I took a step towards the ramp.

Another blow, even more powerful than the
last one, struck me in the left side of the chest, and I went spinning backwards.

Again, ten handguns roared, and there was
another thump in the distance.

"Jane, perimeter, use the combat
droids." I barked it out through clenched teeth.

"Confirmed."

Sixty combat droids came to life, and raced
out as far as where the two bodies were lying, forming a ring around the
docking area.

My suit changed back to Sci-Fi Dress.

The twins hurried over to me, and helped me
back on my feet. I was hurting all down my left side again. My heart area felt
like it was exploding, and my left knee throbbed where I'd come down on the
deck on it.

"FUCK THIS!" I roared, and limped
as fast as I could down the ramp towards the second body.

I found a tripod stand with a Meson Blaster
on it, next to an unconscious man.

I pulled out my right gun, extracted the laser
activator bolt from the holster, and armed the gun for full laser. This was
actually illegal, but I didn’t care.

I looked around. No-one had moved. All eyes
were on me. My eyes went looking for station cams. I noted three of them
pointed directly at me.

I looked directly at one of the cams.

"I know you're going to see this, you
bastard," I yelled. "I don’t know who you are, but hear this. I'm
coming for you! And this is what's going to happen to everyone you send against
me."

I put my gun against the head of the
unconscious man, and pulled the trigger once. Six shots made a mess.

I limped over to the other man, and did the
same thing.

I calmly removed the laser bolt, placed it
back on the holster, changed the charge to a fresh one, and holstered the gun.

"Collect the weapons Jane."

The nearest droids picked up the Pulse Rifle
and Meson Blaster, tripod and all, and carried them towards the ship.

As I turned to move back to the ship, a
group of security officers ran up. The youngest of them, who looked younger
than I was, found the nearest bush, and threw up.

The officer in charge looked me in the eyes,
and hurriedly looked down. I could tell he was shit scared of me.

"You want a piece of me Officer?"
I asked.

"Ah, no sir," he responded.
"I watched the whole thing on hollo as it went down. These two misguided
men tried to kill you, and their weapons malfunctioned, killing them
instantly."

I looked at him for a moment. Some of the
anger began to leech out of me.

"If you need me for a statement, I'll
be at the celebration."

"Yes sir. I won't hold you up any
longer, sir."

"Thank you."

I walked back to the ramp. Alsop looked
appalled. Vonda had the look of someone trying to control her shock. The rest
were smiling.

Aleesha turned to Amanda.

"I told you sis, you created a
monster."

Amanda laughed. I limped up the ramp. At
the top I stopped, and turned.

"Give me five," I said, and
carried on into the ship.

I limped up to my bathroom, and showered in
full suit, to make sure I didn’t have any blood on me. As I stepped out, the
suit was already dry. I looked in the mirror. A large red welt covered my left
temple, extending from the eyebrow to the top of my head, and back to the ear.

Angel greeted me in the bedroom, so I sat
on the bed, scooped her up, and cuddled her for a few minutes. I sat there
doing another two releases. Oddly, for what had been deliberate murder on my
part, the releases were very minor in effect. I pondered that, absently
stroking Angel.

What am I becoming?

What you need to be.

Will I like what I become if I do this sort
of thing?

Liking yourself is not a requirement.

What is?

Loving all beings, even those you must
kill.

Must?

Silence.

I set Angel down in her cat bed, told her I
had to go out for a few hours, and started down again.

"What was that about?" asked
Vonda, when I was back at the ramp.

"Which that is this?" I asked.

"You're yelling at station cams?"

"The cams were following me the whole time.
The entire thing was recorded. I'm very sure it'll get back to whoever ordered
the hit. I just wanted them to know I wasn’t mucking around, and when I say
no-one who comes after me will survive, I mean it."

"Are you ok boss?" asked BA.

"I'll live. But I'm going to be
limping as bad as Alison for a day or two."

"How do you want to do this Jon?"
asked Annabelle.

I counted us. Fifteen, including Jane.

"Diamond formation I think. Vonda
leads, George and Jane bring up the rear."

"You heard him. Form up!"

Vonda strode out a couple of meters.
Annabelle went to behind and to the left of her, and I took the right. The rest
formed up behind us.

We moved out in step, Vonda setting the
pace. Alison and I were limping badly, but Vonda didn’t set a hard pace. I
concentrated on keeping in position, and had my PC synchronize my steps. My
medical monitor upped the dose of pain killers. Behind us, the combat droids
fell back to a close ring around the Cargo Bay.

The celebration was in full swing when we
arrived.

We had to surrender our weapons at the
door, which I did reluctantly.

We moved into the mass of people as a
group. Amanda steered Alison and I to a group of easy chairs, and we gladly
slumped down in them. George came up with beers.

"Would you rather something
stronger?" he asked me.

"Actually, alcohol of any sort with
pain killers, isn’t a good idea. Can you get me something soft? Ginger Ale or
something?" He nodded.

"Me too," said Alison.

George nodded again, and left.

"Are you okay Jon?" she asked me.

"Very sore. My suit took the hits
okay, but I'm still going to have a major set of bruises again."

"Spa when we get back?"

"You're on."

James McLauchlan came up to me. He pulled
over another chair, and sat facing me.

"You’re a miracle worker Chief,"
I said to him.

He smiled, but waved away the compliment.

"We have some business to
discuss," he said.

"What do I owe the shipyard?"

"Oh that. No, it wasn’t about the
bill. I'll send you an invoice in the morning, after we know what the cost of
repairs to Gunbus will be."

"I look forward to it," I said
with a shudder. He laughed.

"No, what we need to discuss is
royalties and license fees, on designs. I've had enquiries about the new
dropship design already. With your permission, we'll call it a Python class
Dropship." I nodded. Sounded like a good name. "Since it was designed
by Bob, from your requirements, fine-tuned and built by me, I propose we split
the royalties, or license fees, three ways. Assuming you agree, I'm building a
half dozen to put on the sales room floor, expecting a rush on them. What do
you think?"

Bob Derr was the owner of Sydney Shipyard,
and becoming a good friend.

Royalties would be paid each time a ship
was sold, or built to order. License fees were the same amount, but paid for a
license to build it yourself. The former would most likely be private or
corporate buyers. The latter most likely governments, or corporates like John
Slice, with their own shipyard.

"Sounds good and fair to me."

"The next license to consider is the
John Wayne class Pocket Battleship. The Americans are already sniffing around
for the rights to modify their Cruisers into the same configuration. Sci-Fi
sector are thinking of building a few, and the British are interested as
well."

"How do they all know about her so
fast?"

"They asked. The Americans explicitly
asked what you wanted done with John Wayne, since they've so many Actor class
Cruisers. Locals saw what went in, and what came out. It had an effect in the
right places here. The Brits took an interest as soon as they heard about the
redesign from the Americans."

"Have I started a new arms race?"
He laughed.

"No, more like catch up. There hasn’t
been any decent military ship building in a long time now. All the developments
in recent years have been in Privateer and Freighter designs, which is all
individuals can usually afford. But as you so ably demonstrated, the old
Cruisers are now so far out of step with reality, they're effectively useless. The
Sci-Fi and British sectors have lost two Cruisers, six Destroyers and six
Corvettes, with six more ships badly trashed, including a Battlewagon. They
need replacements, and the John Wayne class can defend itself against most
threats, without being the cost of a Battleship."

I nodded. This was really interesting, and
it was taking my mind off my aches.

"I'll see what the market will bear,"
he went on, "but on a three way split again, I see us making a license fee
each, of something in the vicinity of one hundred million. A ship built from
scratch isn’t going to give any change from one point five billion. What do you
think?"

"I'm in. I'm sure Bob will agree as
well."

"I think he will too. We all
contributed to it, more or less equally, so the three way split of three
hundred million works for me."

"Me too."

"Bob mentioned something about you
refitting a Lincoln class Corvette?"

"Unthinkable. Yes, she was going to be
upgraded to as close to Gunbus as could be done, without a complete redesign.
She should have the same basic armament, but not quite the speed and shielding.
Why do you ask?"