Hunter Legacy 5 Hail the Hero Read Free

hurt. Really hurt. BA hadn’t let up. She’d
pushed me to the limit of physical exhaustion, and my bruises hadn’t liked it.
But I savored the pain. I deserved it.
    I limped back onto the Bridge, and sat. BA
and I were the last ones to enter.
    I emptied the bottle of water waiting for
me. Jeeves quietly took the empty and dropped another full bottle in the
holder.
    “Jane… Ouch!”
    I looked around to see BA step back with a
medical device in her hand.
    “Sorry Jon, I pushed you as hard as I
had to, but we need you pain free now.”
    “Just as well you’re a superb combat
soldier, because you’re a lousy nurse.”
    There was a titter of laugher around the
room.
    “Jane, sitrep.”
    “Almost ready.”
    “Send the comnavsat as soon as you
can.”
    “Confirmed.”
    I waited impatiently. I had to suppress the
urge to get up and pace.
    “Droid away.”
    It took another minute to jump. The scan
data for Miami popped onto the screen again.
    There was a mass of grey dots. No green
ones at all. Dread seized my heart and squeezed.
    “What the hell happened?” asked
Eric, down in one of the Camels.
    I hadn’t realized team coms was back on.
    A huge area was marked as a navigation
hazard, but oddly, the down jump corridor was clear. And now I looked closely,
there appeared to be a line of grey dots ending in an arrow head, pointing into
Miami. Some of my dread lifted.
    “Let’s go find out,” I responded.
    I opened a channel to Repulse.
    “BigMother is jumping into Miami.
Admiral Bentley, you have the fleet until I return.”
    “Aye sir,” she replied.
    Unlike me, she was professional enough to
not show any emotion. The channel closed.
    I nodded to Jane, and she moved us forward,
and into the jump at a low speed.

Three

    The first seven ships we passed were all
Gunbus’. The next fifteen were Excalibur’s. They moved to follow us, showing
they were still operational.
    “Coms?” I asked Jane.
    “None.”
    I tried pinging Miriam with a simple ‘please
answer this ping’ message.
    “What took you so long?” came back.
    I grinned.
    I looked around, and they were all
grinning, seeing the dots following us.
    “Sitrep,” I pinged her.
    “The first two ships missed us by
inches. Yorktown and Lexington were both damaged by missiles, and cannot land
fighters. Two Gunbus’ lost. Seven Excalibur’s lost. Twenty three other fighters
lost before we could join the fight. Almost all ships of Corvette size or
smaller are damaged. Can you take the worst of us? At least we can ping basic
instructions to each other, so I can tell people to land if you can take us.”
    “Yes. We can take four squadrons for
now. Send them in worst first. The Excalibur’s should fit in through the rear
of the Flight Deck, but some of you will need to spacewalk to an airlock, as
there aren’t enough bays. Six Gunbus can dock at our external airlocks. If
Greer is still with us, you and he report to my Ready Room please.”
    I threw her ping to a side screen so
everyone could read it.
    “Jane, prepare for fighters landing.
Get every repair droid we have to the Maintenance Deck, and the Flight Deck.
Find out why they have no coms, and repair whatever the problem is on the
Corvettes and Excalibur’s first.”
    “Confirmed.”
    “Both on our way,” answered
Miriam.
    “BigMother Corvettes and fighters,
launch please. We need all available docking for incoming damaged ships. Custer
as well please. I want a general inspection of all ships in the American fleet.
If you get close enough, pings work, so see if you can make contact with each
one. Squadron Leader, take Lexington. Wing Commander, take the Yorktown. See if
we can set up any form of communication with them. If you can make contact with
an Admiral, I want to know immediately. Oh, and Wing Commander, deploy a
comnavsat please. And can you recover the one we sent through earlier, and see
if it, and the droid, are repairable.”
    There was a chorus of acknowledgments, and
ships began