He started coughing, and it continued for a good two minutes. He didn’t know how he was involved in Justine's death, but he said the words to do the release anyway. He knew that no-one fully understood their own involvement in anything which happened, and so the release needed to cover everything not known as well as known.
And the rest.
He struggled for a moment to remember the higher level release, knowing the one he'd said wasn’t exactly word for word anyway.
Jane took pity on him, and popped up the book it came from, 'The Wisdom of the Ages, Accrued Karma'. She flipped the pages for him to open at the release statement.
"I extend this release through all levels of dna," he added, and Jane again read it with him, "attached or not, and through my soul lineage, and soul extensions, forgiving myself unconditionally, and forgiving anyone else connected to this unconditionally, with healing to be given now."
He started coughing again, and this time it went on for nearly ten minutes, and when he stopped, his chest hurt, as if someone had pulled out a solid mass of malignant flesh.
Jane popped up the image of the woman who killed Justine.
Fred looked at her for a long time.
"I forgive you," he finally said, and started crying again.
Slightly delayed, on Palomino and Concorde, Jane said the same three words, and was crying too.
Twenty Seven
Warspite had known for hours now he'd have to fight for the jump point he was heading towards in HR12. The Owls were protecting their core space with a full two fleets.
Warspite's Cry, his chosen name for the flagship Battleship he was in, was the vanguard of a fleet making a three dimensional arrow head, with the larger ships in the center, and the smaller ones staggered back and further out. He'd treated it as an intellectual exercise to position each ship where it was both capable of delivering a killing blow, and as safe as can be in combat. Not that it really mattered. The fleet had enough Mosquito missiles to destroy an Owl fleet, without even firing main guns. Waste of missiles though, so he'd prioritized the guns.
Five minutes before coming in gun range, the Owl ships all turned and began jumping out.
Warspite's mouth fell open.
"Well that’s different," he said aloud.
Just when he was going to have his own first battle in command, the enemy do the one thing they'd never done before, and bugged out. It wasn’t fair!
Jane received the update, and had to laugh to herself. She requested he send ships to the other jump point, to make sure the system was clear, and to deploy a comnavsat.
Warspite broke his formation in half, and sent one of them off.
He was still going to get his battle though. He had other orders. His fleet came to a stop, but Warspite's Cry continued on into the jump point.
On the other side, he found the two fleets still heading away. But his orders were to stop. He did.
"Damnit!" he said. Followed by "Oh!", as the two fleets stopped, and began to turn to face him.
But his orders were not to take them on. All the same, he couldn’t do what he came to do, without giving them something to think about.
The Battleship had twenty capital ship missile launchers. Not a lot by Jane's standards, but then, she hadn't designed this particular class of ship, just augmented and improved them. Twenty would have to do. The first salvo launched. Two seconds later, the second salvo launched.
At the same time, four tiny, by comparison, satellites launched as well, and the comnavsats boosted themselves in the four cardinal directions. Jane wanted to know what was going on here at all times, even if the Owls found one of the comnavsats. So four of them were going to the edge of up, down, left, and right, of the jump point, out to almost maximum range. Between them, they covered an immense amount of space, and with the Owl's speed, some five hours' notice of anything coming to reinforce any blockade or attack force the Owls decided to have there.
The third salvo launched as the first salvo slammed into the first twenty Owl ships. All twenty took major damage. This repeated itself with the next twenty, and the last ten were reduced to debris, having taken two missiles instead of one.
Warspite sent out the SR droids.
About twenty minutes away, a freighter was heading towards the jump point. Warspite opened a channel.
"This is the Hunter Kingdom ship Warspite's Cry. Are you able to assist with survivors?"
The face which appeared was Mushroom.
"Warspite's Cry, I doubt any will be left by the time we arrive, but if there are, yes, we can take them."
"I've sent over search and rescue units. If there are survivors, they should still be alive when you arrive, and will be delivered to you."
"Is there any reason why you cannot take them yourself?"
"This ship is the lead element of a blockade force on the other side of this jump point. I anticipate it will be months before we leave station, and we have nothing on board the Owls would want to eat."
"Let us see if there are survivors or not."
The channel closed.
A half hour later, the channel opened again.
"There are survivors. Who pays for us to reverse course, and take them to the nearest Owl planet?"
"They do. Or at least, their military command does."
"You do not want to take responsibility for your slaughter?"
"It's not a matter of that. We rendered help on our first encounter, and all they did was shoot us. If they want to live now, they can pay their own way. If they don’t want to pay, throw them back."
"A bit callous aren't you?"
"Possibly. But I'm here to make sure the Owl military comes no further. Anything else is above my pay grade."
Old flat screens did come in handy for throw away lines, and Warspite had been watching a lot of them lately.
"Who should we discuss it with?"
"If you take the left jump point in the next system, you should encounter Queen Jane somewhere along that route. You can talk to her."
"Perhaps we will."
The channel closed. The Mushroom ship ponderously turned back the way it had come, and left Warspite with the debris. Since none of it was near enough to the jump point to cause problems, he recalled his SR droids without sending out the salvage droids. With the comnavsats in position, and his droids aboard, he flipped Warspite's Cry over, rolled, and powered back through the jump.
The fleet on the other side had changed to create a funnel shape, so any ship jumping in had to run the gauntlet of the length of the steadily thinning funnel. There was plenty of room for freighters to pass without needing to change course in a hurry. But warships jumping in would be hit within two seconds of down jumping, and it would take them twenty seconds to pass out of the funnel, assuming they lived that long.
Twenty Eight
Repulse's fleet down jumped into the next system off the main track, which hadn't been given a designation yet.
There was a ship sitting a good way away, but it wasn’t moving. Repulse opened a channel. A Bald Eagle answered.
"Who are you? What are you? Never mind, can you help us?"
Repulse looked at the creature before answering. It resembled a bald eagle in the same way the Owls resembled an Owl. Much bigger, four legs and three arms, and no wings. Jane had started forming a theory about evolution in this end of the galaxy. They all looked like birds to humans, but were anything but.
These ones looked different to the ones they'd met on the previous planet. It took her a moment to realize they were not quite so bald.
"What kind of help do you need?"
"Help getting home for one thing. It seems every time we try to contact the outside galaxy, some Owl comes along and leaves us floating in space. This time was no different. Although the Owls seemed to be in one hell of a hurry to get somewhere this time, and just left us here, saying they'd tow us home when they came back."
"There are no Owls around this end of space any more. There
might be a few a few systems on, but there won't be for long."
"How can you be so sure?"
Repulse smiled.
"They picked a fight with someone they couldn’t beat."
"Not possible. They beat everyone."
"Not any more. They're officially outclassed now."
"So who are you?"
"Species Human, Kingdom of Hunter's Run."
"Never heard of you."
"You have now, and we are going to be neighbors. Let's organize that tow."
"Wait, can you send a ship to deliver messages for us?"
"No need. Send them to me, and I'll send them straight on."
"How?"
"Communications network. I just set up this system to join it. If you like, I can add your planet to the network as well, although there will likely be some sort of rental for its use."
"Who do we talk to about that?"
"My Queen probably. I'll ask. In the meantime, consider me our ambassador to your people."
"Ambassador, please tow me back to my planet. And then, we need to talk."
"Everyone says that," laughed Repulse.
One of the Corvettes in the fleet shot forward, extended a grav sled, and slapped it down on the top front of the ship. The fleet began moving in the direction of the Bald Eagle's planet.
Still at the other Eagle planet, Jane took the news of a second one in her stride. She immediately let their hosts know contact had been made, and offered to let them communicate using their network. The Eagles were ecstatic, and diplomacy moved up another notch.
Walsh told Darlene the news about a second Bald Eagle planet, and she announced it in council. The news was received well, and several species requested an adjournment to contact traders to begin making contact with them again.
Fred received the news as well, but didn’t bother announcing it. His council was still bogged down in taxation matters, and the last thing they wanted to know about was another alien on their doorstep. He was having trouble concentrating, but was hanging in there, still determined not to show the grief he still labored under.
Over at the Hunter shipyard, Phoenix2 slid out of her bay, and docked at another section of the yard. Cargo droids loaded her cargo bay until it was full, and kept cramming more in wherever they could.
Jane stepped out of an alcove in one section of the shipyard, which specialized in building droids. She was in a brand new avatar special body. She took a suit belt from the bin nearby, and shifted into a new body look. She'd chosen one very similar to Justine, but different enough no-one looking closely would mistake them. Over the naked body, she added 'slinky red'.
By the time she reached Phoenix2, the ship had been fully loaded. She settled in on the Bridge, and undocked the ship.
She resumed the interrupted task of placing satellites in orbit of Gaia Three. She was very glad she'd built more than she needed, given they'd lost a lot of them with the destruction of Phoenix. As far as she was aware, no-one noticed she was even there.
What they did notice, was the five squadrons of Excaliburs which launched from a series of fighter bays, and proceeded to take up patrol routes around Gaia Three, and the Orbital station.
Fred had been waiting for this, queued in by Janette, and he rose to interrupt high finance negotiations. He waved at the wall, and sixty above average size long range fighters were shown deploying around the planet. A number of the delegates from the other planets frowned, showing Fred that something else was in the works and this upset current plans. The Gaia twelve were happy.
"We need to talk," pinged in from Madam Chair, who'd made the same connection from the looks on faces.
Even Fred could see that much was obvious. He started to ping Justine to get her to come to the meeting as well, and stopped. Pain flickered momentarily across his face, but he kept control.
He needed a new aide.
But he didn't want one.
Twenty Nine
The down jump into HRA7 had been routine, with nothing except freighters on the navmap. Concorde had proceeded towards where the only habitable planet should orbit. From a distance, nothing showed at all. The freighters weren't going anywhere near it. Which fact made Jane uneasy. She approached orbit cautiously, but continued to find nothing. The comnavsat launched, and Jane went cold when she saw the first data from it.
The planet below was dead. The radiation level was lethal to every being she knew about. A nuclear winter had begun.
The snow and ice hadn't completely covered the ruins of large cities. Jane focused the comnavsat sensors trying to find anything or anyone alive. All she found was a cockroach like being, and they looked like they were dying off as well.
No bunkers buried deep with huddled survivors. Nothing left to even identify who or what had lived here.
Jane was stunned. Was this a local war? Or was it the work of the Owls on a race which had defied them? Had the locals even revolted against the Owls and paid the ultimate price?
Yes, there were faint purple plant readings. This planet had been a growing place for the Owls. And until very recently too.
A yellow dot appeared on her HUD, closely followed by twenty four more. Her radiological alarm went off.
She immediately launched Mosquitos, and went to full speed in the opposite direction. It took her a moment to figure out how they'd surprised her.
She'd overlooked a large asteroid in orbit further around the planet. Concorde turned to head out and around, and as she did, Owl ships started coming into view. A full fleet.
The nukes began exploding, but well away from everyone.
Jane lost it.
The computer on the nearest ship was brute forced into letting her in, through a simple Wi-Fi attachment Jane found easily, designed to let the captain get his bridge reports on his tablet. Cutting edge tech for Owls, but just what Jane needed to get access without physically going there.
Jane went for the recent logs, and found the execution orders for a whole species. She was horrified to find her arrival had been anticipated, and the beings here had risen up against their oppressors, expecting her to back them up when she arrived. What they hadn't expected was how brutally the Owls would put them down. They never stood a chance of making it until she arrived.
They were dead.
Their world was dead.
Now some Owls would die.
She copied everything, and withdrew from the ship.
In AI mode, a decision was made.
Still out of gun range, she pulled back the speed slider, and came to a stop. She locked up the nearest ship, and for the first time, she started launching IR missiles. Their image recognition was locked on the Owl ship's engines. Three was all it took to batter a way in, and reduce the ship to a drifting hulk. The Owls in the engine section died, but the rest of the ship still had life support, courtesy of bulkheads holding beyond the engine spaces.
Twenty four more times she killed the engines, leaving all twenty five ships adrift. After the first ten, the others had tried to flee, but locking and firing three missile salvos didn’t take long enough for any of them to get far.
On a whim, Jane shifted her suit into a representation of the Grim Reaper, and opened a channel to all the ships. Twenty five com screens popped up, showing twenty five Owl captains.
"What are you?" asked one of them, presumably the fleet admiral.
Jane couldn’t tell, and didn’t care.
"Death," she told them in a deep voice, in Owl. "But not all at once. And not very fast. I condemn you to the same death you inflicted on the planet below, but without the fire and destruction. You destroyed a world, and now that world will have its revenge on you."
She cut the channels without letting them say anything more.
Concorde eased up to the nearest ship, slid out her grav sled, and took it in tow, extending shields around it.
Jane took the ship down through the planet's atmosphere, and sought out where the radiation was the worst. She dropped the
ship gently on the ground, cancelling her shields a meter up, and retracting the sled before it took any weight.
She went back for the next one. And the next. And the next. Until all twenty five ships were neatly laid out in a five by five grid.
The Owls hadn't left their ships yet. In theory, they could last until their food or water ran out. And hold out for rescue until then. But Jane wasn’t going to allow it.
Concorde was about ten thousand meters up now, as Jane set about giving the Owls a dose of their own medicine. She fed the Mosquito system the location of every airlock on every ship. And fired one for each.
The Mosquito missile was very small, designed to hit and detonate a much larger missile. It was all guidance, engine, fuel, and a small warhead, just to make sure there was a boom.
The booms this time were not very big, but in each case, the outer lock door was blown apart.
A channel opened. Jane closed it. She tweaked the locations slightly, and Mosquitos launched again.
Same sized booms, inner doors blown apart.
The atmosphere of the planet entered each ship.
All remaining bulkhead doors slammed shut, trying to keep the poisonous atmosphere away from the crew.
Jane was satisfied now. They could make their own decisions. Stay where they were and die of thirst in a few days, or open the doors to get food and water, or a fresher, and die of radiation poisoning instead. The few in the eating areas of each ship would last the longest. But not too long, since the internal bulkheads wouldn’t keep the radiation out for long. Jane had checked, to make sure she did enough to not allow them to escape from their own barbarity.
Concorde headed for orbit, and Jane shifted back to herself. Once there, she launched more comnavsats, so that no matter which direction any ship approached the planet from, it would encounter a warning beacon. The beacon was broadcasting in all known languages.
A.I. Destiny 2: Queen Jane Page 11
