She pushed Phoenix up to full speed, and rolled around on to a side vector to come around behind them. More missiles launched at her, and Mosquitos continued to launch to counter them.
Sheer speed now allowed her to come around behind the last ship in the group, and she brought her own down to match it.
"Last chance," she said.
They launched another volley of missiles at her. Mosquitos answered again.
Jane lined up the engines of the last ship, and fired a torpedo. She assessed the damage to shields, and fired again. The third one brought the shields down, and damaged the engines. She had to violently alter course as the ship lost way, and came to a stop.
The next three ships were disabled the same way.
The last one had nearly made it to the atmosphere when the third torpedo destroyed its engines. The ship continued to fall in, without shields.
Jane swore, and goosed Phoenix around to the side of the ship, trying to overtake it. The fire of atmospheric entry started to enclose both ships, and Jane desperately slid out a grav sled, slewed Phoenix around, and slapped the grav sled down on the hull. Phoenix took the load, and Jane extended her shields around the ship, beginning to pull it up and out.
The freighter exploded.
Jane had a few nanoseconds to send out a single message, before Phoenix took the full force of the detonation of however many missiles the freighter still had on board.
Both ships were blasted into chunks, which rained down through the atmosphere, burning up as they went.
Across the system, Jane clones stopped, and as one, all turned to face the fireball over Gaia Three.
Down on Gaia Five, Fred received an email which overrode his PC, and popped up a vid hollo.
"I'm sorry," said Justine. "Goodbye."
A split second of fire replaced her face, and the vid ended abruptly.
"NO!" screamed Fred, and he fainted.
Twenty
Shock rippled along the communication pathways.
The Battlecruiser Cayuga wobbled violently for several seconds, before Cayuga came out of his shock and regained control. The captain yelled at the helmsman, who everyone assumed had lost control. They'd all seen the explosion, and no-one really blamed the poor crewman, but the captain had to yell at him anyway.
The lights failed across the entire Hunter's Run city for several seconds, and Janette the computer voice, failed to answer for that time.
On all of Jane's Limos, passengers found themselves with no computer response for two seconds. One of them crashed instead of landing, with minimal damage to the ship, but the passenger needed new underwear, and the landing pad required repairs.
The avatar on the British Royal Station froze for long enough for Queen Liz to notice.
"Did something just happen?" she asked her aide.
"Colonel Henman just died," said the obviously devastated aide.
The Queen reached for her aide and hugged her.
The Battleship Repulse failed to make a turn at the designated time, her Admiral frozen in shock having failed to give the order. Her XO gaped at the Admiral, and gave the order himself.
Generals Patton and Price asked the same question the Queen had of their aides, and received the same answer.
On Yorktown and Intrepid, the computers stopped answering for several seconds.
Janine actually screamed, but there was no-one to hear her.
Jane on Palomino gasped, and froze, as the explosion terminated the feed she'd been assimilating from her Justine-self. The other AI's received the explosion nanoseconds later.
Stryker lost control of his ship for two long seconds, and Palomino almost collided with another ship before he took control back.
Two systems over, Warspite was standing on the Bridge of his flagship, and he quite literally fell down from the shock.
In HRA6, Jane felt the full loss as the explosion felt like it ripped a piece of her away. She fell out of her chair, and crashed to the deck. Justine's last message and Fred's cry of anguish followed so fast, the ship staggered as a result. She lay there, trying to get a grip, and making no attempt to stand up.
"I'll stay here for a while. I like it down here."
Jon's voice echoed through her mind. There was no-one to haul her back on her feet, like there had always been for him. She stayed where she was.
The ripple continued.
Walsh and Darlene were both in the Council chamber, one representing Humans, and the other the Kingdom. Both of them froze as the feed reached them. The council seats were not close enough together for them to touch, so Darlene immediately rose and moved to Walsh. He reached out for her, drew her into his lap, and she hugged him fiercely. Both of them suddenly became aware they were crying.
They were not the only ones. From Gaia to the Council system, every AI with the latest bodies discovered they could cry. It was as unsettling for all of them as the loss of one of their own had been devastating.
"Ambassador Walsh," said Ganshura. "Is something wrong?"
Walsh made a huge effort to get a grip.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. But it's nothing to concern this council, although we would request a recess."
"Council is in recess."
The two of them rose, and began to leave.
"Can I help?" appeared on Walsh's tablet, from Ganshura.
"A colleague of ours just unexpectedly died in our home system," he responded. "We just need some time to get over the shock."
"Take all the time you need."
Jane took all the time she needed. She remained on the deck of Concorde's Bridge for ten long minutes. She felt the love and support of every AI flow through her, but she stayed where she was and processed her loss. On Palomino, she remained frozen. Back along the communications path, all of her avatars who were with people excused themselves, and sought out a place to be alone.
Back in Gaia, Cayuga recognized Jane was incapacitated, and acted. Someone had to.
The freighter closest to the blast had taken further damage. Sensors showed no life on board. The other three ships had fared better, but they were dangerously close to a planet, and had no engines.
Cayuga reached out to one of Jane's Dreadnaughts over Gaia Five, and did a command override on four of the Excaliburs in the hanger. They launched as soon as the hanger doors opened, and were quickly proceeding at top speed. Each of them took a freighter in tow, and pulled them away from Gaia Three.
The problem now was what to do with them. The lifeless ship was the easiest decision. The Excalibur headed for the Hunter shipyard. The other three were towed away from danger, while Cayuga assessed their condition. None of the ships were going to keep the people alive for very long. He told the Excaliburs to dock them with Borgcubia. He connected to the station AI, and issued suggestions to have security droids ready to receive prisoners. The Jane clone was traumatized, but accepted the suggestions and gave the orders. A section of the old accommodations was prepared to take the people, and once they were there, they were going to be isolated until they reached where they were going.
Cayuga pondered where to send them, assessing each planet in human space. He seriously considered dropping them on one of the still poisoned planets, but it was too close to revenge for comfort. Revenge always ended badly, for everyone, and he knew this. Resisting it wasn’t as easy as he thought it should be.
In the end, he had what he considered a brilliant idea. They'd be moved to HR14 as Borgcubia went past, where since they couldn't get along with humans, they could learn to get along with aliens instead.
"I'm okay," said Jane on Concorde, picking herself up, and sitting, her message rippling along the communication pathways.
Twenty One
"It is my sad duty," said Madam Chair, "to inform you one of our number has fallen. Colonel Justine Henman died yesterday in the performance of her duties. There will now be a minute's silence."
"Garbage there will," said the Latin representative for one of Gaia Five's meg
a-cities. "Henman was a murderer. She killed over five hundred innocent people, and almost killed two thousand more. The fact she died in the process was only what she deserved."
Arguments broke out with people defending or attacking Justine.
No-one saw Fred's head jerk, or him rise from his seat, and move. What they did see was an enraged man who leapt on the man who'd insulted the love of his life, and proceeded to beat him to a pulp. No-one moved.
Fred stopped when he ran out of energy, leaned back up, and cast his eyes around the chamber. No-one met his eyes, except Sarah, who looked down at his hands.
They were red. Most of him was spattered in blood as well. He looked down at the bloody corpse underneath him.
And jerked awake, sitting up in his bed, cold sweat running down his back.
"Easy lad," said a deep male voice, with a lot of command in it.
He looked towards the voice, and saw an older man, somewhat portly, with grey hair, and a neatly trimmed almost white moustache. He had the bearing of a career soldier, in spite of what his waistline was now doing.
"Who are you?"
"Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart. Retired. Or at least I was until a short time ago. Jane sent me to help you."
"Oh. Go away."
"Don’t be like that lad. I know exactly how you feel."
"How could you?"
"Justine was my protégé. I loved her like a daughter."
"I just loved her."
"I know you did lad. But it's times like these that test a man. You have duties."
"Go away!"
"Now then lad. You are a Baron of the Kingdom. If you want to be a Duke someday, you need to act like one. And that means a stiff upper lip, and get right back on the horse."
"She was NOT a horse!"
"Of course not old bean. Didn’t mean to imply she was. But the old adage works. Life knocks you down, you get back up and carry on. Are you going to act like this when you lose someone in battle?"
"What battle? She told me I’d never be a soldier."
"And no, you won't. But where do you think the Duke is if the realm is threatened? Right there with the Generals, giving them orders. You might not ever amount to much of a soldier, but by damned lad, you are an officer. And you're going to get out of this bed, put on your uniform of the day, and do your duty sir!"
"But…"
"Don’t argue with me son," bellowed a parade ground voice. "Get out of this bed. NOW!"
Fred bolted up out of bed, and ran for the shower. When he came out a short time later, the room was empty. He picked up Sarah on the way to his Lightning, and they shuttled up to the Council meeting in silence.
He couldn’t stop himself from looking at the planet as they docked.
But he was in control of himself now, and he'd be damned if anyone would see him grieving.
When everyone was seated, Madam Chair rose.
"It is my sad duty," she said, "to inform you one of our number has fallen. Colonel Justine Henman died during the night in the performance of her duties. There will now be a minute's silence."
No-one said anything. No-one moved. To Fred, the minute dragged by like an hour.
Twenty Two
Jane wasn’t okay, but she was holding it together for the others. At least, that’s what she told herself.
She was glad she was alone on Concorde. It was bad enough having the others pussyfooting around her on Palomino, without having to put up with it twice over here as well.
Now she knew exactly how Jon had felt when Moose had blown up. It had gutted him in a way she couldn’t understand at the time, even though she'd tried to support him through it. But now she knew. It didn’t help. It was different in so far as she'd lost part of herself. But was it really? Justine had been a clone. Independent, but still part of her. She'd spent a lot of primary time being her, but even more time not being her. They had been like best friends, like sisters, like soulmates, like…
"Fucking hell Jane, get a grip!" she told herself.
The first missile hit her shields.
"What?"
The second missile hit her shields, quickly followed by ten more.
Jane shook her head, not really believing she'd been hit at all.
"JANE!" came through the coms link from herself on Palomino.
Jane came out of her funk to the reality she was approaching a planet, and an Owl missile platform was firing on her.
She activated the point defense turrets and the next salvo was destroyed well away from Concorde. The platform kept firing, the turrets kept shooting, and Concorde kept flying right at it.
At point blank range, she fired all the main guns, and the platform exploded. Concorde plowed straight through the debris field, and took more of a hit to her shields from the debris, than from the missiles which had hit.
Someone slapped her face, hard. Her head snapped round, and she was back.
No-one was there. And yet, her face really felt like it had been slapped, including the pain.
The planet was looming ahead now. She brought her focus back to what she was doing.
"Nice shooting," said a voice, on a voice only channel she hadn't noticed open. "Now piss off."
"What?"
"You heard me. Thanks for killing some pesky Owls, but piss off."
"I'm…"
"Don’t care. Do you see any ships coming here?"
Jane hadn't looked. When she did, she found she was the only one anywhere near the planet. There was a stream of freighters passing both ways through the system, but they all bypassed this planetary orbit completely.
"Ah, no."
"There you are."
"Did the Owls bother you?"
"No. We ignored them. They came here with a fleet a couple of centuries ago. We told them to piss off. Their grand admiral came down for lunch. He was apparently delicious. They landed troops. We vanished into the mountains and they never found us. Fifty years later, they were still looking for us, but we had a Chief who got bored one day, and he went Owl hunting. A year later we came down out of the mountains after the last Owl was killed. They never came back. About twenty years ago they came past again, and their platform broke down. It's been here ever since taking pot shots at us when we get too visible. So thanks for killing it, but now you can piss off."
"Just for your information…"
"No information. What part of piss off don’t you understand?"
"You are in my space, and…"
"Your space? That’s a bit pretentious isn’t it? Your space? You personally own all this space, with us in it? What are you? A bloody Queen?"
"Yes."
There was a shocked pause.
"Not THE bloody Queen?"
Jane suddenly realized something.
This conversation wasn’t being translated either way.
And the accent on the other end, impossibly, sounded Scottish.
Sometime later on Palomino, itself approaching a planet, Jane began to laugh. She lost control, and laughed long and hard, and doubled over and kept laughing. The others gathered around her, but no-one was game to interrupt her. Finally, she got a grip, and sat up again, still chuckling.
"What?" asked Yorktown.
"Nothing's worn under the kilt," said Jane in a Scottish accent. "It's all in perfect working order."
Twenty Three
Fred read the email. He read it twice to make sure he'd understood it. And a third time to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He still wasn’t sure so he thumped himself on his other arm.
"Ouch."
No, not dreaming. He became aware of a silence around him, and looked around. Everyone was looking at him.
"Something you’d like to share, Baron Hunter?" asked Madam Chair.
"Um."
"Very illuminating I'm sure," said the American ambassador. "Can we get back to tax issues please?"
"I've had the most amazing email," said Fred, in a voice which showed he still didn’t believe it.
/> "And?" asked Madam Chair.
"Apparently Jane has found a planet of humans."
"What?"
"How?"
"Where did they come from?"
"Scotland apparently."
Silence.
"Scotland, as in Britain sub-entity, Scotland?" asked the British ambassador.
"Apparently."
"How?"
"According to Jane, they're on a planet eighteen jumps from here. They know very little about anything, lost their memories when we did, but had a whole heap of hand written documents, from which they relearned their basic history. These show they crash landed a ship there about three hundred years ago, and have been there ever since."
"Did they come from Gaia?"
"Jane says no. One of the oldest documents claims someone got drunk in a pub one night, and bragged there was the Promised Land on the end of a closely guarded jump point. All those who went through never came back. This filtered back to a planet called Scotland, where a lot of people got drunk one night, and by the time they sobered up, they were all on a giant ship heading up something they called the spine."
The British ambassador face-palmed.
"They found a quaint little place called Outback, but nothing else. A few months later, they were drunk again as usual, and one of them saw a ship appear from nowhere. They re-boarded their ship, jumped through when no-one was looking, and found a planet there with nothing but religious nuts on it."
Six of the Gaia Twelve face-palmed.
"So they kept going. A long time later, the ship suffered a failure of some kind and they were forced to land. The word crash gets bandied about, but apparently there were many disagreements over it as the years went past, and no-one really knows if they crashed, or broke something landing."
"Pilot was probably drunk," murmured someone.
"They’ve been there ever since, and just want to be left alone."
"Did Jane tell them about Gaia?"
"She did. They sent us all a message."
"What was it?" asked Madam Chair.
"You don’t want to know."
"Yes we do," said the British ambassador.
A.I. Destiny 2: Queen Jane Page 9
