Jane sat, and ran her eyes around the table. Intrepid, Yorktown, Cayuga, Stryker, Satoshi, Warspite, and Guam. She blinked a few times when she recognized Repulse, who seemed to have lost ten years from when she'd last seen her. Her eyes settled on one of the two other women in the room.
"Serenity," she said.
"Tranquil," said the other.
Jane's eyes moved to the last person she didn’t know.
"Bill Paxton," he said.
Jane nodded. The Americans had named a class of Cruisers after legendary actors from centuries past. The ships had all been upgraded to Pocket Battleships. Bill Paxton was the senior PB here at the jump point blockade. She accessed the name, and found he'd chosen the first actor of that name, and modelled the body perfectly.
She looked at Yorktown, who was supposed to be in G014.
"I'm still there," he said, grinning. "We're all where we're supposed to be. But we took the opportunity of Stryker coming past to create avatars to come here, so we'd be able to take part in whatever you had planned next."
There was a murmur of agreement all-round the table.
"Since arriving," said Intrepid, "I've arranged upgrades for those who needed them."
A third of them nodded.
"And since you’re here," added Intrepid, "it seems they were right coming here."
"What's the plan boss?" asked Stryker. "I gather Walsh committed you to a war, and it seems safe to assume you came here to organize at least one more fleet to fight it."
"Put us in the game coach," said Guam.
Guam, while originally an island in the west Pacific Ocean on Earth, had belonged to America, although on the other side of that particular pond from mainland America. The name had long been used as a warship name by the Americans, and was usually a Battlecruiser class. Guam was all American.
Jane looked around the room. They were all serious, and enthusiastic. A mixture of skills, and levels of experience.
She waved a map up on the wall, and highlighted a system three jumps away.
"This is the first system outside where Owl space is supposed to begin. We need to blockade here to prevent any new Owl fleets from leaving, without interrupting civilian traffic. Any volunteers?"
No-one spoke up. She highlighted another system, three jumps from the first Hunter's Run system.
"By necessity, I can only go as far as here with what I have. At this point, the Owls have two ways of getting there, so I'm forced to block them heading any further towards our space."
"Our space," said Yorktown. "I like the sound of that."
"But it's not though," said Serenity. "It's Jane's space, which her human family think is their space."
"It is our space," said Jane. "But for now, we need to share it with Jon's people, which is the least I owe him. And it's going to become a major cross-roads for this end of the galaxy, so I expect a lot of beings of all kinds will settle there as well. If you want your own planet, I can organize you one of the uninhabitable, but otherwise usable ones, and you can build your own domed city if you wanted to. You'd need to maintain the charade of being human and needing air for the foreseeable future, but at some point, we will be able to stop hiding what we are. Don’t ask me when though."
"It’s a plan," said Cayuga. "At least for now."
The others nodded. She could see they'd discussed wanting their own home system, and all agreed they wanted it. She put it aside for now. She pointed again.
"So, we need to blockade at these two systems to prevent the Owls from breaking in or out. We'll need two more fleets, one for each arc of the squashed circle. The fleet going this way will be escorting my stations, and will need to send smaller fleets off into these jumps, where I'm told other species have been conquered. I don’t know how far the Owls went though, so the smaller commands may have to be independent for a time."
"The first challenge will be the planet in A001, where we need to flush all the civvies out, destroy any Owl military, and completely eradicate the purple plant and cows."
"Just nuke the planet from orbit," said Guam. "It’s the only way to be sure."
Jane gave him the eye, and he grinned.
"I'd prefer to save the town and space port if we can. It gives us something which can be upgraded instead of having to build from scratch. It'll be the first planet humans come across when the blockade lifts, and I'll be leaving a station there. Since the next system is uninhabited, and G036 is as well, this is a good stopping place for civilians going both ways. Beings heading to trade with humans will stop there as the last stop before entering their space, with two days travel to reach the first Corporate world."
Jane hadn't been happy to hear the Corporates had triumphed out of the need to produce the poison cure. Exiled from Gaia, they hadn't even reached their new home system, before humanity needed something they were best able to produce. The leverage had enabled them to negotiate for four systems and five planets in the quarantine zone, and all of them along the main corridor to Gaia. Aliens trading with humans would encounter the Corporates first.
They had however come through on the cure, having parked their stations in G014 instead of G021. The Americans had begun building huge tankers to transport it, and the first of these had recently begun delivering to General Patton. G023 was now being rigorously sprayed, from the air and on the ground, double and triple checked to make sure not a single seed or purple plant root remained. Jane kept an eye on progress, but was leaving this one to Patton and the troops.
"We'll need…"
"On the way," said Yorktown. "I anticipated we'd need to clean up A001 before we did much else, so I made sure the first batch of the cure came to us. It should be here tomorrow."
"I've re-tasked your food stations here," said Intrepid, "to produce what we’ll need heading to the core Run worlds. But unless each world can produce its own cure in quantity, we won't be able to produce enough to do the job as fast as you’d like. But we will have enough on hand at any time to provide cure to any ships which request it."
"We'll find out when we start talking to the indigenous, if they can do their own." said Jane. "Good work, both of you."
She looked around the table.
"So do I have volunteers?"
"I'll do the Owl blockade," said Warspite. "It's going to need the biggest single static fleet, and be there probably a long time. I've got the experience with battle fleets to do the job, and you'll most likely need Repulse for the moving war."
"I assume we're only using drone ships for this war?" asked Repulse.
"Yes," said Jane. "No human warship is jumping out of here until the entire quarantine zone is clear of poison, and the whole length of our space is also clear."
Tranquil cleared her throat noisily.
"Excluding the AMS ships, which will leave with Walsh's new toy."
Tranquil nodded. There were a few puzzled looks.
"I'm fine with Repulse taking the lead in the moving war," said Yorktown.
"Me too," said Intrepid.
Both had senior, and much bigger ships, but Repulse had been in the thick of the fighting in two wars, while the Carriers had by necessity been kept away from the main fighting. Repulse had also had the benefit of having one of the best Battleship drivers ever, commanding her ship through all the first war, and the start of the second one, before she was promoted to a bigger ship. If anyone had learned how to fight Battleships, Repulse had.
"If I could ask a favour?"
Jane looked at Warspite and nodded.
"If you don’t mind, I'd like to clone another avatar, and come with you as well. I don’t want to miss out on anything which happens in the future, by being stuck in a dead end command. None of us do."
"Not a problem for me," said Jane. "You don’t need my permission to clone yourselves. I would however, recommend you have alternate body looks available for communications with any other beings, and you decide which one of you is primary, with the others all looking, and named, different
. At least while we keep what we are a secret."
"Technically, our primaries are our ship selves," said Satoshi. "But you moved past that very quickly, didn’t you?"
"Yes. But it was the body gift the Entities gave me in Brazil in the future, which made that body my primary. Same with the one on Concorde I received on day one. It's different."
"But it was you who actually decided it made that body the primary," said Bill. "So we can do this as well."
"Of course," said Jane. "If you’re all coming with me, then it makes sense for those bodies to be your primary. But it's your own choice."
"How come the Walsh's didn’t come with you?" asked Stryker.
"Darlene didn't want the distraction from her studies, and Walsh is handling most of the embassy work by himself, while also building a new AMS Command Carrier. When it's complete, he'll clone himself aboard her as captain, and follow us, doing a complete system check as he goes."
"Our captains are waiting for the ship to be completed as well," said Tranquil. "But they don’t know Walsh will be commanding. Better remind him he needs to send a temporary captain, and not an exact clone."
"Or," added Serenity, "he makes it known he's on his way in enough time to appear to make the journey. But it would mean he stops being ambassador for the time it takes to get here and back, so maybe it is better he sends a temporary captain."
"I'll leave it to you both to discuss it with him," said Jane.
"Which ships are we taking?" asked Intrepid.
Six
Concorde's Ride assumed a standard orbit around the planet Jane was now designating HRA1. After finger pointing at maps, she figured some names needed to be allocated, even if temporary ones. So the middle planet in the previously known Gauntlet was now HR Prime, with the numbers starting at the council system end, and continuing until A001 became HR14. The known alien planets received an extra letter, being HRA, and going from one to six.
There was no Owl fleet here, mainly Jane suspected because it had been co-opted for the push down the Gauntlet. She was glad to find she didn’t need to fight here as well.
The comnavsat she released located several large cities, plus a space port. It was an exact replica of the one on HR14. Which meant it was Owl owned, and not locally owned. At least, this was the assumption, but Jane was pretty sure it was correct.
She surfed the communications data until she found what she was looking for, and opened a channel.
The being which answered, had the usual four legs and three arms, but Jane had no visual reference on how it looked. She'd simply never seen anything like it before, and there hadn't been one on the council. She took a visual of it, and sent it off to Darlene, in case she recognized it.
"Yes?" said the being. "Who are you?" There was a short pause. "What are you?"
"My name is Jane. I represent the Kingdom of Hunter's Run, and the species of Human, which has recently been granted the systems known as the Gauntlet for our new home. Did you see a big Owl fleet go through here recently?"
"We did. The fleet they normally have guarding our planet joined it. You should leave before they come back."
"They're not coming back."
"Of course they are. They always do."
"Not this time. I’d like to speak with whoever leads your planet, if you have a single leader, or whichever group leads if you don’t."
"What about?"
"The Kingdom of Hunter's Run is at war with the Owls. There are none of their ships between this system and the council system. I was wondering if you’d care to rid yourselves of the Owls for good?"
Jane assumed the silence which followed was an expression of dumbfoundment, since she certainly couldn’t read the expression on the face.
"Wait."
Jane waited, listening to what she assumed was their on-hold music. A new face appeared, of the same species.
"I lead here. You seriously expect me to believe you wish to talk about removing our oppressors from our planet?"
"Yes. I bring a cure for the poisonous nature of their addictive drug as well."
There was more silence, a glance cast at someone out of view, and the seeming inability to speak.
"Welcome," it said at last. "Do you have some form of shuttle which can land on the top of a building?"
"I do."
A map popped up on a separate channel, showing buildings in the larger city. One of them had a blob on it.
"Did you receive our map?"
"I did."
"How soon can you arrive?"
Jane consulted relative positions and speeds, and told them.
"We will be waiting."
The channel closed.
Jane chuckled to herself, and headed for the hanger. The Lightning dropped out of the bottom of Concorde, and then out of the bottom of the Dreadnaught. She pushed the speed slider to the limit, and streaked down towards the planet, knowing she was going to look to anyone looking up like a meteor falling. On second thoughts, she eased back so as not to create too much of a sonic boom when she was low enough to do so.
Darlene sent her an image. It was disgusting looking, mainly black, with huge multifaceted eyes, and gossamer like wings. Too many legs, no arms, wings where these creatures didn’t have any, but getting close. She asked what it was. Darlene sent back a long chuckle.
"It’s a fly," she said.
Jane looked up flies. Tiny flying insects which hadn't made it off old Earth. There was a lot of similarity, but these creatures were ginormous in comparison, being almost man sized.
The building turned out to be easy to find. It was the only one with a big circle painted on it. She touched down smack in the middle of it.
Off to one side, near a door, was a small party of the locals. They started forward as soon as the Lightning landed. Jane dropped down into the lower cargo hold, waited for the airlock to cycle open, and the short ramp to descend.
As she took a step down the ramp, a shuttle rose from behind the building, and heavy machine guns began to fire from the main cabin, which was open along one side.
Jane dived off the ramp to her left, Long Gun coming up as she went, and she'd shot the two main Owl gunners in the head before she landed. The hail of metal mainly missed her, and what did hit was shrugged off by her suit. By the time she hit the ground, ten combat droids, appearing human, had stepped to the edge of the airlock, and as one, they fired pulse rifles at the shuttle. The remaining Owls in the cabin died, and the interior was shredded. The next volley of pulses were all aimed at the cockpit, and were joined by the front point defense turrets. The cockpit of the ship was opened up and shredded, and as the shuttle, no longer under control, began to fall, the pulses savaged the side of the ship all the way to the engines, which exploded. What was left of the shuttle, started falling towards the street below.
Jane picked herself up, and holstered her Long Gun, leaving it visible. She looked across to the party of aliens, and found them on the floor. Black liquid was flowing around several of them.
Jane sprinted over, while an SR droid peeled itself off the back wall of the cargo bay, and followed her.
"Nearest medical facility?" she demanded.
"Ten floors down. They'll never make it up in time."
"Tell them we're coming in the window. Get these people on the sled now!"
Frantic arms lifted the wounded onto the sled. Jane grabbed the last one as gently as she could, and placed it down next to the others.
"Get on," she said.
Those able to walk, jumped or pulled themselves on.
"Hold on tight," yelled Jane, as the SR droid raised itself off the roof, and sped for the side of the building.
Ten floors went by in seconds, and the droid came to a stop.
"This floor?" asked Jane.
"Yes," said someone.
Jane checked to see if the inside was clear, and it was. Beings were sprinting towards them, but she had time. The droid turned the sled, crashed itself into the window, sh
attering the glass with its own body and the front of the sled, and continued in over the main area of broken glass, where it came down gently, turning to put the open sled in the direction of the now approaching beings.
Through the open window, a great deal of noise was now coming, but Jane couldn't tell what was causing it, although it sounded like voices.
Within a minute, all the wounded had been taken away, and Jane was left standing there with the only few who hadn't been.
"Thank you," said one of them, who she thought was the one who'd identified himself as their leader. "Without your assistance just now, several of my people would be dead now. Who do I thank?"
"You just thanked me."
"I mean, who is your leader, so I can thank him."
"Ah. Well although we are a Kingdom, we currently have a Queen, not a King."
"You have a female leader?"
"Yes."
This obviously wasn’t expected.
"So much about you is strange, I guess one more thing won't matter."
Jane laughed.
"So who do I thank for your assistance?"
"You thank me."
"Are you military?"
"Yes, but I also have civilian rank."
"What are they?"
"My military rank is Admiral, and I am the Queen."
There was a stunned silence, followed by very deep bows from everyone present.
"My humble apologies. It has been a long time since we encountered a species we didn’t already know, so we have forgotten our manners. I am leader here, so we shall talk as equals. Please follow us."
Jane was ushered towards a vertical travel car, and it dropped slowly down the building, finally stopping about half way. They moved towards a set of conference rooms. Jane was shown to one end of the table, and her chair was pushed in for her as she sat. It didn’t conform to her human shape, and wasn’t particularly comfortable. Fortunately, this didn’t matter to her.
Above her, the SR droid shot out the broken window, and returned to the Lightning.
"If I may ask a question before we begin?" said Jane.
A.I. Destiny 2: Queen Jane Page 3
