"Oh? Now you want in?"
"What? A ship that big cant park mine inside?"
"Actually, no. I already have a full hanger."
"So I need to beg, is that it?"
Jane started laughing again, and the expression took on an edge of predator.
The hanger doors opened, and the Lightning dropped clear.
"What the hell is that?"
"Fast courier."
"How fast?"
"Very fast."
"And that?"
"Salvage droid. It will tow you inside."
"Will you be able to match my airlock?"
Jane checked. And blinked rapidly.
"Can I see some specifications?"
"Sure. Nothing secret about this ship."
They pulsed over. Jane shifted up to AI mode, and spent a full second looking them over. She was amazed to see the internal layout of a Corvette within the hull size of a large Privateer. But then, everything was on a smaller scale.
"No," she said. "My connections are all going to be too big. I'll have to rig something once you're inside the hanger."
"Well get on with it."
Jane began to wonder if the species was always this cranky, or if it was just this one example of it. The salvage droid pulled the small ship inside, and brought it up to the Lightning's docking position.
"What's that?"
"Long range fighter."
"How does it fare against an Owl Cruiser?"
"I've not tried it yet. But I left six of them to guard a jump point in case one of their fleets went that way."
"Nice."
The tail had stopped swishing now, and was almost standing up.
The Lightning touched down on the outer hull of Concorde, and a clunking sound was heard through the ship, along with a vibration. Jane hadn't been paying attention properly.
"What the hell was that?"
"Courier landing on the hull."
"Why would you park a fast courier on the hull?"
"Because it's not fast enough to keep up."
The bald face scrunched up, and a little fist came up under its jaw line.
"Put your analyst on danger money."
Jane exploded into laughter again.
Thirty Four
Palomino came into orbit of the habitable planet in HRA4. A comnavsat shot out of an airlock.
"Missile launch," said Stryker.
This was a bit of an understatement. The HUD was showing multiple launches from locations all over the continent they had come into orbit above.
"Someone has a shoot first and don’t bother with questions attitude," said Bill.
"Owls?" asked Tranquil.
"No fleet or missile platform in orbit," said Yorktown.
"Who then?" asked Serenity.
Jane didn’t bother speculating. She opened a channel.
"You're not Owls," said something which looked a bit like a Duck.
"No," said Jane. "Human. Kingdom of Hunter's Run, now owning the space which used to be known as the Gauntlet."
"Oh shit," said someone off-hollo.
"We apologize," said the Duck on the hollo. "And we will apologize again to those who come looking for you."
"I take it you fired without checking your target?"
"Haven't needed to in many years now. It's always an Owl which comes here, or one of their minions, or hangers on."
"That will be changing soon. The Kingdom's space runs past this system, and beyond the Kingdom is Human space. As soon as the war with the Owls is over, a great deal of trade is coming this way, in both directions."
"We would welcome being part of the sector again. But the price I'm afraid is going to be too high."
"What price?" asked Stryker.
"Your deaths of course. We really are very sorry."
"You keep saying that. Why?" asked Tranquil.
"Pretty obvious I would have thought," said Bill.
He was grinning. Jane joined him. After a moment, so did the rest of the military AI's.
"What?" asked Serenity.
"They think they fired enough missiles at us to ensure we die," said Bill.
Jane was barely paying any attention to them, going in and out of AI mode, plotting responses.
"We did fire more than enough at you," said the Duck.
"Not a problem," said Jane, now fully back.
Palomino shifted orbit slightly, bringing her nose into line with the middle swarm of missiles. The Destroyer turrets opened fire first, and missiles began to explode well short. As the explosions seemed to walk towards Palomino, the rest of the turrets started firing as well, and space around most of the ship seemed to boil.
The Duck was looking confused. It could see on a monitor the explosions happening above the planet, and it could see a Bridge full of humans sitting there unconcerned. The explosions ended. The humans didn’t.
"How did you do that?" it asked.
"Practice," said Jane.
"Ain't that the truth," said Bill quietly.
"How can you forgive us?" asked the Duck.
"Easily," said Jane. "I understand your position perfectly."
"How could you?"
"Let me guess. You have some of your people addicted to the Owl's drug, but you have them contained. The Owls cultivated it on your planet, but you have that contained as well. But the problem is only just contained, and you can't risk anyone getting down and into the general population."
"How could you possibly know all that?"
"The compound and the plant field are pretty obvious, even from up here."
Tranquil and Serenity were looking confused, but Stryker pointed to the comnavsat data.
"So you understand why we can't let you land then."
"We bring a cure."
The duck went still. A second duck face appeared in the hollo.
"Can you prove this?"
"Yes. We have a small amount of it on board, and can show you it working. I can send you the formula. I can put you in touch with anyone you like on the Sector Ten council who can verify it."
"It would take too long to contact the council."
"Minutes at this distance." Both ducks looked shocked. "Send up your message, and who to send it to."
There was a flurry of duck activity, and for the first time they saw a whole duck. It had the normal four legs and three arms, but it did indeed look sort of like a duck. The bill was a dead giveaway, as were the tail feathers, and the way they moved them.
"Got it," said Stryker. "Sending it on."
"Anyone care to supervise getting our cure supply ready to use?" asked Jane.
Bill grinned, waved at the two AMS girls, and the three of them left.
Less than two minutes later, they received a response from the fuzz-ball ambassador.
"The cure is real, and you can trust these humans. Welcome back into the sector."
The ducks hugged each other.
Thirty Five
Jane had a fair amount of experience with cats, but this one was something else. From the front, it looked like a Merekat, standing upright and scanning everywhere for potential threats. Its ears were perhaps a little large, and the lack of fur was strange, although Jane knew there were furless cat breeds across human space. Even a few furless dogs. At its highest, it didn’t quite come up to Jane's knee, which she thought was odd given all the bird analogs were huge, but the animal ones were not. The tip of its tail was waving just over the top of its head. Around its neck was a collar, hanging from which appeared to be a smaller version of Barf's communication box.
When it turned coming out the airlock, Jane could see a conventional cat body, behind the front section which had the conventional three arms. Its four legs appeared normal for a cat. It was very obviously male.
It stopped just outside the airlock.
"Bloody hell. You could have heated the damn place. It's freezing in here!"
"You wanted in. You said nothing about temperature requirements."
<
br /> Muttering to itself, it dived back into its ship, and emerged a few minutes later, clad in what looked like a knitted wool jumper.
Jane lost the use of her lower jaw for a few moments.
"What are you gawking at?"
"Nice knit."
"Pull one of the others. Those mop heads had it made for me when I complained about the cold. Said I looked 'distinguished'. In an Owl's ear I do. But it beats getting cold. What's that you're wearing?"
"Uniform. Adapts to your body form."
"Can I have one?"
Jane thought about it. And couldn’t come up with a reason why not.
"Come with me," she said.
The cat followed her, easily keeping pace with her stride. She led him to the Armoury.
"What the hell is that?"
"Combat armour."
"You don’t have one my size, do you?"
"Afraid not."
She saw him eyeing the gun racks, fortunately well out of his reach.
"No, too big for you as well."
"Damn it. Why did you have to be so damn big?"
Jane didn’t want to go there, so she left it alone. Instead, she pulled a suit belt out of a bin, and handed it to the cat.
"What do I do with this? It's way too big."
"Here," she said, taking it back.
She looped it around the cat's middle, and commanded it to tighten up.
"I thought you were giving me a suit? I don’t need accessorizing."
Jane triggered it into space suit mode, and the cat was instantly covered head to foot.
It panicked, rolling around trying to get it off.
Jane grinned, and shifted it to 'slinky red'. In an instant, the cat was clad head to toe in the Hunter uniform, adapting to the extra legs and arms. It stopped struggling, and stood up.
"Too tight," it said in a falsetto voice, before sitting down and clutching the area between its hind legs.
Jane kept grinning, but made some adjustments. The area in distress became less constricted. The pain on his face eased, and he stood up again. Another distressed look overcame him.
"Get it off me! I'm boiling up in here."
Jane shifted the suit back to a belt, and the cat quickly found the buckle and took it off. It stood there glaring at her for a moment, while Jane kept grinning. Then it shucked the knit, and buckled the belt back on.
"And again?"
Jane shifted the belt back to a suit. The cat wiggled itself, trying the fit, walked a few steps to make sure it could, and sat looking at Jane.
"Better. What do you call this?"
"Hunter uniform."
"And what did you do to me first?"
"Space suit mode. Probably keep you alive for an hour without an air connection."
"What else has it got?"
Jane shifted it into protection mode. The cat turned into a foot pouffe, and was quite unable to move.
"Huh?"
"We'll need to work on that. I'll scale it back in proportion to your size. Come on, we'll go to the Bridge."
She turned and started to walk away. The cat wobbled a bit, but went nowhere.
"Hey? Forget something mop head?"
Jane looked back.
"Oh sorry."
The suit shifted back into 'slinky red'. The cat tested its movement ability again, and started after her.
At the access shaft, Jane jumped up. The cat looked after her retreating form.
"What is this?"
"Gravity control. Just jump up."
The cat did, using its strong hind legs to boost it. It shot upwards a lot faster than Jane was, so they arrived at the Bridge level at the same time.
Jane grabbed one of the hand rails, and swung herself out. The cat sailed on past, being way too far away from the rails for its short arms.
"Oh great! Forget to tell me something?"
A few seconds later there was an "Oooooph."
Jane looked in and up, to find the cat flat against the ceiling.
"Oops."
"Yeah right, get me down."
Jane turned off the grav. The cat plummeted.
"Gently you mop head!"
Jane turned the grav back on, and being the up shaft, the cat slowed almost to a stop just before the bottom. Its paws touched down so it jumped again. This time aiming to arrive at the rails, where it grabbed one and pulled itself around to fly out. Gravity asserted itself, and the cat crashed to the deck in a full gravity. It still managed to land on its paws though, although quite heavily. It opened its mouth to say something.
"Let's be having no more mop head comments, shall we?"
"Fine."
He didn’t quite spit it out, but Jane took it that way anyway. She led the way into the Bridge, and sat in her chair.
The cat took one look at the console area, and jumped straight up. It gained no traction on the smooth surface, and continued to slide until it fetched up in a heap against the view screen. He picked himself up, and carefully walked back to sit just in from the helm seat.
Jane had an intense feeling of déjà vu.
"What was that face for?"
"I was just remembering when another being a bit like you did the same thing a couple of years ago."
"And you didn’t change the design?"
"No, actually, we put a mat down for it."
Jane actually looked around to see if a butler droid was coming in with a cat mat. But there wasn’t one on board to do that. She'd never intended having guests, so had never really set up for their needs. The Walsh's hadn't counted in that regard.
Jane sighed. The memories kept coming.
She expanded the navmap to show where they were. The cat shifted around so he could see as well. It had taken over an hour to convert the airlock on the end of the connection tunnel, as Jane hadn't wanted to make any mistakes with it. So they'd already passed the jump point and were now heading towards the one for HL12.
"What's a white dot?"
"Hunter ships."
"Holy hell. How many do you have?"
The navmap was only showing the system they were in, and the ones on each side. So in the next system was Warspite's blockade fleet in two places, and behind them was Jane's six capital ships.
"A lot."
"Are you blockading the Owls?"
"Yes. We have a few systems to check, but it's looking like their military are now only in their own space."
"Good."
The cat looked at her over its shoulder.
"You don’t keep any dead ones do you?"
"Fraid not."
"Damn."
"Can I ask where you come from?"
"Sure."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"And?"
"And what?"
"Where are you from?"
"A planet in Sector Eight."
"That sounds like a long way away."
"Not really, spatially speaking. But the way the jump points are aligned, it is."
"Any reason you're this far away from home?"
"Yes."
Another silence.
"And"
"And what?"
"Don’t come the raw prawn with me."
"Do you have any?"
"Do you know what a prawn is?"
"No, but it sounds like food."
"It is, and I don’t."
"Damn."
"Reason?"
"I said I had one. I didn’t say I’d tell you."
"Fine. What do I call you?"
Once again, the name didn’t translate. Jane shrugged. The cat shrugged.
"I don’t care. Just don’t call me late for dinner."
"It's BYO."
"Bee. Why. Oh?"
"Bring your own."
"Figures. I guess you don’t eat rodent?"
"Ah, no. And I guess you’d hate what I eat."
It certainly wouldn’t like eating nothing. Jane kept her face straight.
"I tried what those kilted mop hea
ds ate, and you’re right. It was ghastly."
"Do you have enough to last you a while?"
"How much of a while?"
"I'm not sure. I'm debating making a trip to the Owl homeworld."
"Not enough to go that far. Why would you want to go there?"
"To end the war. And I can get there a lot faster than you think."
"I've about a week's worth left. If you can get me a dead Owl in the meantime, I can stretch that another week."
"No promises."
"If you’re going into their space, you will need to fight, so a dead one shouldn’t be too hard to find."
"Only if I don’t hit them very hard."
The cat looked at her steadily, trying to figure out if she was serious.
Jane grinned suddenly.
"Now what?"
"I think I'll call you Catastrophe."
The cat face-palmed.
Thirty Six
The fuzz-ball ambassador broke the news the Ducks were back in touch, and had an ambassador on the way. There was some enthusiastic responses, and Walsh assumed it meant the Ducks had some products to trade which had been sorely missed.
He was starting to wish the Human ambassador would hurry up and get here. The whole ambassadorial thing was starting to wear off. The work load on just the two of them, even with Barf and Pink, and half dozen staff, was too much for them.
But the ambassador was still in HRA4 with the stations. Until Palomino had checked out HR10 and HRA3, it wasn’t considered safe to let Midnight Orchid come on at her best speed.
Walsh wished Jane would hurry up. He was counting days as it was. He'd decided he wanted to launch his new exploration command carrier himself, and that meant being replaced by the human ambassador before he could leave. He'd discussed the options with the other AMS AI's, but decided he should postpone the launch until he could get there by Lightning. The shipyard was coming closer to him each day, but it was still going to be a journey to get there. The AMS ships were doing sorties in the systems as they went through, checking the usual positions for jump points, and finding nothing new. But it was far from a thorough check.
The only thing he hadn't worked out, was how to release Darlene from being an ambassador when he left, so she could go with him.
He sent off a note to Jane asking her how they could do it.
Jane received it first on Palomino.
"Cayuga?" she called.
A.I. Destiny 2: Queen Jane Page 13
