A.I. Destiny 2: Queen Jane

by Timothy Ellis

  "Yes sir. You command all Owl military forces."

  "Think about what you are doing. You have been given orders. You will accept them, or be relieved of command."

  "I cannot accept these orders General. This is a trick."

  "It's no trick. We have ended the war with the Humans, signed trade treaties with them worth far in excess of the ones we are losing, and they will be helping us with health issues we seem to be suffering as a species. You will follow your orders."

  "I cannot. The humans cannot be trusted, and I cannot trust this communication."

  "You are relieved of command."

  The fleet Owl bristled, but his second, the ship's captain, stepped forward next to him.

  "No-one here will take command of this fleet. We stand with our Admiral."

  The General and Admiral made eye contact, and both nodded. The General turned to Jane.

  "Admiral Jane, we find ourselves with a fleet in mutiny. As our new allies, and as their next target, you are authorized to use deadly force against the fleet, and destroy it."

  Jane stepped into cam range, wearing a full dress uniform.

  "General, it is my hope your fleets will follow your orders, but if they do not, I will reduce them to dust."

  Spokes-Owl also stepped up.

  "Will the families show their agreement with the orders given, by a show of hands?"

  All the Owls there raised all three hands.

  The Owls on the ship were at first horrified, then became resigned. The ship Admiral started giving orders, and the channel closed. Jane signed in relief, and shifted her suit back into 'slinky red'. The shift was noted by everyone there, but no-one was game to question it. Jane checked to make sure the ships did change course. The closest fleet continued on, but the fleet behind them turned back, with five of the ships splitting off to start a patrol pattern around the system they were in.

  The second loose end was all the Owl freighters, and other traders out bound carrying what was now considered contraband.

  The senior Owls present made a vid requesting all ships to dump their purple plant and drug cargoes, and to reverse course to return to the Owl homeworld to receive new cargos. The captains were assured there would be no financial loss to them or their trading entities. They added that failure to return, would eventually result in the destruction of their ship when they entered Kingdom space.

  Jane delivered the message to all outbound ships, and confirmed their acceptance of the orders. Her journey back was going to be broken up with the need to destroy drifting cargos.

  Warspite sent a message to himself, and from that moment, any ship jumping out of Owl space with the plant, animal or drug on board was to be stopped and seized.

  On the Bridge of Warspite's Cry, Warspite rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

  Fifty Five

  It was nearly a day later before Concorde's Ride left the Owl homeworld. Snark's shipment took longer to transfer aboard than the Owls had promised. No surprise there. But there had been one extra task for Jane to do.

  Warspite had returned to Concorde, and was concentrating on his self at the blockade point. Several ships had ignored the orders to return to the Owl homeworld, and had jumped through into HR12 causing a Ding! Not having any troops with him, he'd challenged each ship, and fired warning shots.

  The first had ignored the fleet of ships, and the warning shots, up until Warspite took out its engines with IR missiles. One of the Corvettes in the fleet had taken the ship in tow. Unfortunately, all on board had died, since none of its compartment bulkheads had been closed. Warspite moved some cargo droids over to the freighter, dumped crew and cargo into space, and used a battleship gun to vaporize all of it. The Corvette began the long trip to HR Prime.

  The second ship also ignored the verbal warnings, but stopped when the warning shots were fired. Its cargo was jettisoned, and once Warspite was sure it was all gone from the ship, he let it go on its way. It chose to continue on.

  Thereafter, a trickle of ships came through, some already having dumped their cargos, the rest doing so when challenged.

  Jane was almost ready to leave herself, when an off-hand comment had shown her the Owls had no comprehension of what they'd done. She'd convinced spokes-Owl and the ten most senior family representatives to meet with her.

  "You've no idea what you've done, do you?" she asked them bluntly.

  "Done what?"

  "When your new ambassador reaches the sector capital system, I’d be very surprised if he's not arrested and tried for war crimes."

  "War crimes?"

  The whole room was shocked.

  "You really don’t know do you. One of your fleets nuked a world back into the primordial age, with not a single survivor. There are worlds out there which tremble at the mention of your name, and have withdrawn from the sector because of you. You killed countless billions of beings over centuries through drug running a poison. You hunt a sentient species in the same way you hunt rodents here. A planet died trying to rid themselves of your poison. You have no supporters left in council. In fact, most of the council members hate your kind. They just never felt able to show it before now."

  "Which fleet nuked a planet without authorization?" asked an elder Owl.

  "The lack of authorization doesn’t matter. The buck stops in this room. You are all responsible. As far as the fleet goes, they're all dead. I took their ships down to the planet, and left them there, open to the highly irradiated air. Just destroying them in space seemed too good for them."

  "Which species do you refer to us hunting?" asked another. Jane waved an image of the Mice to the nearest computer screen. "Those are not sentient."

  "Yes they are. In fact, they are considerably more technologically advanced than you are. I've given them my protection, and any ship of hunters trying to land there will be destroyed."

  "Why do you care?" asked spokes-Owl.

  Jane wondered how many times she was going to be asked this question. She'd finally worked out an answer she felt summed her up.

  "I care about all beings, sentient or not. There is no why about it, no reason, no motivation. I just do. This includes you. Some of the species who've lost billions to your poison wanted me to come here and eradicate all life on this planet."

  Jane didn’t think an Owl could look more shocked than it already did, but she was wrong.

  "Which species died trying to find a cure?"

  Jane threw an image of dead bodies on the screen.

  "That explains why they stopped answering our emails about shipments," said one to another.

  There was silence for a time, and Jane let it hang there.

  "What can we do?" asked spokes-Owl eventually.

  Jane told them, and went back to her ship.

  By the time Concorde's Ride was moving again, Palomino was jumping into HR8. The fleet and stations were only a system behind them.

  Jane was beginning to think about her new Kingdom now.

  They'd been leaving stations behind as they went, over the Bald Eagle planet in HRA5, the Duck planet in HRA4, the Mice planet in HRA2, and Fly planet in HRA1. Another was still on its way to the second Bald Eagle planet. For now, the idea was to make trading easier, and giving incentive for them to join the Kingdom. With each station, was left a small system protection fleet. Each station and fleet was being controlled by a different AI from Palomino.

  At each planet, local merchants had already agreed to the Kingdom's electronic transaction policy, and the ten percent tax on them. Modifications to premises were underway, and traders passing through were already beginning to dock with them.

  Another station and fleet was on its way to the Scots planet in HRA6. They'd managed to convince the locals the best way of everyone obeying 'you can bloody well piss off', and thus not bothering them, was to have a station there. The defense force would then prevent anyone from landing on the planet, but trade could still blossom. This was more acceptable to them when it was pointed
out new stocks of actual human alcohol could start to be ordered in, along with food items they'd long forgotten about, such as chocolate and coffee. They prided themselves on their Scotch Whiskey of course, but being able to import the genuine original article had high appeal, as was the ability to export the local version. The Scots had proved to be interesting people. At face value, alcohol seemed to be all they were interested in, but the more contact Jane had with them, the more she saw this as a front, to keep what was important to them private.

  Jane detached a small fleet from Warspite's command, and assigned it to patrol between HRA6 and HR12. There was nothing there anyone really wanted, but the last thing Jane was going to allow to happen, was provide systems in her space where pirates could hide, or form into groups. She had no clue if there were pirates here, but she wasn’t taking any chances all the same. HR13 and HR10 were also assigned small patrol fleets from Warspite's command, while they'd left a patrol in HR9 as they'd gone through.

  There was traffic coming through HR9 now, which seemed to indicate an unknown jump point. Jane had the ships backtracked to find it, but other than leaving a repeating message on the comnavsat launched there, welcoming all beings to the Kingdom of Hunter's Run, and giving out the basic laws in force; Jane left further exploration for Walsh to do after he launched his new ship.

  On a hunch, she back checked all the other uninhabited systems in her space, and found traffic coming through from HRA3, indicating there must be a jump point somewhere there as well. She tasks ships to check, leave comnavsats if they found a jump point, and add to Walsh's list of things to do. The most likely explanation was somewhere a jump point connected sector space she hadn't explored yet, and now it was safe to, traffic originating at this end was taking the faster route, now it was available to them once more.

  She had plenty of Hive Drones now, blanketing her space all the way back to HR14, exploring for resources mostly, but she could have sent some in the new jump points. But since nothing coming through appeared to be warships, she felt it better to leave it to Walsh.

  Jane absently noted Stryker was firing warning shots at a freighter, and then a short time later, noted cargo containers being jettisoned. She was leaving all this to Stryker now. A lot of the ships ahead of them were carrying the plant or drug, and were now being interdicted as they went. It was slowing them down a bit, but it didn’t seem to matter.

  Jane allocated stations to each of the former Gauntlet systems. The first was to be by the jump point leading out of what was core Kingdom space, thus being a picket for wherever ships were coming from, into core space, and allowing contraband checking to be done before ships got further in. The system didn’t have a habitable planet, so there was no better place to put it.

  The last in the sequence was the former Outback station, which was also going to be at the jump point in HR1, to also act as a picket for the rest of the sector as they entered the Kingdom. A fairly substantial fleet was allocated to the jump point, which when it arrived, would allow the sector fleet on the other side to be reassigned. Another station was going to be in orbit of the habitable planet, with more ships patrolling the system. The mainly merchant families on Outback station, were already readying the station to be the first human contact for all the trading ships expected to head for HR Prime, and Gaia. They would also become the original citizens of the HR1 Duchy, once it was established.

  Each of the core systems without a habitable planet was getting its own station, positioned roughly half way across the system on the main route taken by traffic. Once again, each was getting its own patrol force. Business premises on each were already being leased by both Kingdom merchants still on Borgcubia, and some of the larger Human Federation chains. It might take a while for all of them to start operating, but the builder droids on each, were already tasked with doing custom premises, so all the merchants needed to do was to move in when they arrived.

  HR Prime was the odd system out. Its four jump points were each getting a station and fleet, while another fleet would patrol around the home planet.

  She needed to think about what to build on each of the habitable planets. Also who should live on them, and control them. She had two existing potential Dukes in Michael and Fred. Although Michael would need a Regent until he grew up.

  There were enough stations from the old Apricot system to colonize a planet on their own. They could elect their own Duke. Most of the rest of the population wanting to live dirtside were coming on Borgcubia, which itself would be the main Hub station for the Kingdom Seat.

  She had five habitable planets, if she included HR14, but only that one planet had anyone on it. HR Prime could be called a Paradise planet, although not quite up to Gaia Three's level, it was still capable of easily coping with five billion people, and still preserve its wilderness areas. HR1 was classified Good, with a potential population level of one point two billion. HR3 was only Fair, with a population up to three hundred million. HR7 was also Good, at around a billion. HR14 was Poor, up to maybe one fifty million.

  Each planet needed a population, and a Duke. As the populations grew, she could appoint Earls and Barons as well.

  And there were the AI's to consider.

  They wanted their own planet.

  She had no problem with this, but which one was best?

  Fifty Six

  Fred couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t particularly happy either. Justine's Pride was a very comfortable ship, now traveling fast through the British system.

  The team were cycling through all the ship and mercenary tasks, each one learning all the roles. There was the large ship captain course, helmsman's course, combat pilot course, and dropship pilot course, all for ship functions. There were also advanced computer and communications courses, and general military officer courses. They were also training between course sessions on the combat ranges, and with the new combat suits.

  Fred felt left out.

  He sat his watches on the Bridge when Lyana told him to, and he was doing the captain course himself as well. But she wouldn’t let him sit in the captain's chair, instead relegated to the Ambassador's chair behind the captains, which didn’t have any controls.

  He'd managed to crash the Dropship, quite spectacularly, every time he'd tried the simulator course. In the Excalibur simulator, he'd been dead meat so fast in every engagement, he was only flying them in secret now, so no-one would laugh at him.

  His bed was really comfortable, but he couldn’t sleep. He could handle the being left out part, if he made an effort to push himself above it. But it was the ship itself he was having the most difficulty with.

  When he'd named the ship, it had never occurred to him someone would give the ship computer Justine's voice. So every time it spoke, it was like a knife twisted in a raw wound.

  He turned over and tried to go to sleep, but all he ended up doing was tossing and turning.

  Across the system, Queen Liz was likewise unable to sleep. Her husband was imitating a rock next to her, and there was not a peep coming from her son's room. But her mind was full, and she didn’t like what was filling it.

  It was actually something of a relief for her when the door burst open suddenly, and the light came on.

  Jane strode through the door.

  "Get up Ma'am. I think we have trouble, and we need to get you to safety."

  "What sort of trouble Brigadier?"

  The Queen sat up, forgetting she was in flimsy nightwear. Her husband was still asleep.

  "Several of the stations have gone communications dark in the last few minutes. I fear a coup is beginning."

  "Which stations?"

  "For now, the two at the very end of the structure." Jane paused. "The third one along just went dark as well. Decision time Majesty."

  "Which one?"

  "Do you fight to keep everything? Or do you do what Admiral Jane suggested, and separate from those who don’t want a monarchy?"

  "What's your worst case scenario?"

  "Only
this station and the next seven are loyal to you. The rest want to be governed by a committee under the Federation council. The trouble is, the extremists want a permanent end to the monarchy, and the ducal system it supports. If they are driving this, I suspect we'll see troops trying to force their way in to capture you. Or simply kill you. I'm alerting Repulse now to watch out for any kind of ship which might be trying to destroy this station outright, as an easy way of solving their problem."

  "Where do we go?"

  "Queen Jane made it quite clear you were always welcome with the Hunter family. Now she has space, and empty planets, I'm sure she'd make one available for you."

  "But the British Monarchy would cease to exist."

  "Not necessarily. You'd need to discuss it with her, and I'm sure she'd be open to a way to keep you and your people safe, while preserving the British legacy. There's no reason why a planet can't have a Queen, who sits as an equal with other planet's Dukes or leaders, on the Kingdom Duke's table. From what Queen Jane has said so far, her thinking is mainly along the lines of the Federation, with self-contained systems where the Leaders all meet as equals, under her overall rule. I guess in effect she would be the permanent Chair to the Duke's table, with the overall label of Kingdom instead of Federation. It might mean a downgrade in the status of your Dukes and other titles, but with only one system, this was going to happen anyway. Some adjustment might need to be made in titles, so a Hunter Duke and a British Duke are not mistaken for the same rank. But these are things for negotiation."

  Jane paused again.

  "Fourth station gone dark. Decision and movement ma'am, please."

  "How many royalists are on the eighth station from us?"

  The station the Queen lived on didn’t have a number, so was effectively station zero. It had been built specifically for Royalty and those with titles and their extended families to live on, for when they'd left the London system during the exodus. Not all of them did live on the special station though.

  "A few thousand scattered about, mostly those not advertising who they support. There has been a movement of people in both directions since we left Gaia. If we sever the station connection between seven and eight, those few left on eight and beyond could be moved by shuttle, or picked up by Kingdom stations as they come through. There have been quite a few applications to emigrate to the Kingdom, even here, on both sides of the monarchy debate."