Jane rose. She nodded to General Patton, sitting with those she knew to be American in origin. She also nodded to General Price, who was sitting with a different group. She knew both of them well, although they had obviously forgotten most of what they knew of her. They both did look confused. She looked towards the chair.
"Madame Chair. Eight days ago I was informed I had been promoted, in the normal course of military promotions, several months earlier. So the last time you saw me, I was indeed wearing one star. Three days ago, the great memory wipe, as the media are calling it, occurred, and shortly after I received a series of emails all sent before the event. One of them promoted me to four star rank, transferred Hunter Security to my personal ownership, and appointed me a Baron of Hunter's Run."
She indicated the Baronial crest on her uniform, where gallantry medals went on military dress uniforms. It was the same as Fred was wearing on his jacket. She looked at him for reaction, and then looked around the room, before looking back at him.
Fred wasn’t the only one looking poleaxed, but his head was the one which jerked around to look at her the quickest.
"We'll talk about it later," Jane said to him quietly, and he resumed looking at the Chair.
"Exactly what is the Duchy of Hunter's Run?" asked grey hair, who seemed to Jane to have taken over the role of provocateur for the room as a whole.
"Where do you come from?" Jane asked him.
The man floundered, given he was unable to answer the question.
"That’s not the point."
"Yes it is," said the Chair. "It's exactly the point. The great memory wipe is aptly named. Those of us who have lived here all our lives remember more than those of you who have not, but we all lost something. Where we originally came from is gone. As far as I can tell, no-one in this system has this memory."
"I do," said Jane quietly.
The room went silent, and totally still.
"You do?" asked General Price.
"You do?" asked Madame Chair.
"How?" asked General Patton.
Jane had already prepared the lie she would use, knowing this would come up sometime. Better now than later though. She'd even faked a complete medical workup to prove it.
"Are you familiar with what they call eidetic or photographic memory?" she asked.
"You have total recall?" asked Price. "As in you remember every little detail perfectly?"
"Yes," said Jane. "It's very rare. As far as I know, I'm the only one at the moment."
"So you know what happened?" asked someone else.
"Not all of it, but enough."
"And you've said nothing," stated the Aboriginal member of the Gaia twelve.
"I don’t see any real point in explaining it to everyone. What's done is done, and we have to deal with the reality of now, not get bogged down in why it happened. The memory loss is a blessing, not the curse some people are making it out to be."
"Can you give us some idea?" asked Price. "It would help us to know something, in order we can frame a response which will satisfy people enough to keep our focus on what must be done."
Jane sighed, and gave it a moment so they would all think she was giving it thought. She wasn’t.
"You read science fiction, don’t you General?"
"I do," answered Price.
Jane swept her gaze around the room, and received a lot of nods. He wasn’t the only one.
"If I was writing a Sci-Fi novel about what happened, the summary would go a bit like this. Humanity made first contact with an alien species which refused to communicate. A war raged, and humanity lost. A way was found to escape, and many billions did. But a group stayed behind to make sure humanity stayed safe for all time. In looking for this answer, a way was discovered to go back in time, and prevent the war from starting at all. But it had one side effect. The timeline was reset back to however far back they went, and all the changes made by higher beings trying to find the same answer, reset back to the original timeline. Everything changed, and all that happened, didn’t. Billions of people in the war timeline ceased to exist, or had their lives altered dramatically, and no-one knew this had happened. The man from Gaia who saved humanity, never existed, even though there are a few pointers left to who he was. The war never happened. There was no exodus. Gaia was never discovered."
Jane stopped, and waited for the inevitable.
"How then are we here?" asked Patton.
"Well that's the part I don’t know. I can guess, but I’d rather someone else say it."
She looked expectantly at the Gaia twelve. All of them looked at the Indian man wearing a turban. He closed his eyes and appeared to be meditating. He opened them again quickly.
"The Deities had a hand in what has been done," he said.
"The ArcAngels as well," came from the woman at the other end of the table.
"Explain please," said grey hair.
"There are higher beings than us," said Jane. "Each communicating through different spiritual groups. I'm assuming they decided we needed to be here, and instead of us all ceasing to exist, or resetting to some different life, they preserved everyone in this system from the timeline collapse. But since the timeline did collapse, no-one remembers anything to do with it."
"But you do," said Price.
"Yes. I remember everything up until the moment when the timeline reset, although I have no direct knowledge of exactly what was done. But I can guess, based on probabilities."
"Fine," said grey hair. "But why does that make a young girl a four star Admiral?"
"I'm the only person of flag rank left within Hunter Security, which I now own. That makes me the boss, regardless of the fact I was promoted by an email sent before the memory loss occurred."
"And what does Hunter Security bring to the table?" asked an Admiral, whom Jane knew to be Italian.
"Apart from several thousand security personnel scattered throughout the stations in this system, a battalion or so of combat troops, and six Corvettes of the Apricot Mapping Service which are already out mapping the systems beyond this one, there are these."
Jane didn’t mention that only the six pilots were human. She waved at a wall, and a screen popped up. In the distance could be seen eight Battleships and four much larger Dreadnaughts, in a neat line orbiting Gaia Five. She moved her lips so people would think she was giving orders sub-vocally, and the ships all realigned to face to the cam.
"Those smaller ships look like Repulse class Battleships," said a one star Admiral, in a British accent. "Are they?"
"Indeed they are," responded Jane. "The other four are Relentless class Dreadnaughts. They are all in synchronous orbit above Hunter's Run City on Gaia Five. There are another two Dreadnaughts, and a further four Battleships, but I've dispatched these out-system."
There was a respectful silence, during which Jane changed the view.
"These are Missile Defense Platforms," she said, "currently deploying around Gaia Three. I own these as well."
"We need to talk, Admiral," said the British Admiral, nodding to her.
"In due time Admiral," said Patton. "The four and three stars of all commands need to meet and discuss what we bring, and how to set up a unified command."
It was obvious he saw himself among the top of that command. And Jane knew this was rightly so. He had been.
"A unified command did exist," she said. "If you wear a uniform similar to mine, you were part of that command. I've modified mine a little, but this was the uniform of Hunter's Run."
"Well that makes some sense at last," said Price. "No-one has been able to understand what the uniform was, and why most wore it and others didn’t, but we all had different ones to choose from."
"There's a lot which won't make sense now," said Jane. "My advice is not to let it become an issue. Forget about the past. We need to focus on why I've today sent six ships out-system, and what the problem currently developing is."
"What problem?" asked the Chair.
"Madam
e Chair, delegates, I must announce that one of my exploration Corvettes is about to make first contact with an alien race, about three days travel from here. There has already been an accident, with my ship colliding with, and destroying, an alien scout ship. The one on its way now, is Battleship sized."
The room went mad.
Six
After ten minutes, it became obvious the Chair wasn’t going to be able to regain control.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" boomed Jane's voice through the room, and it went silent.
A few faces showed new respect for her now. She'd demonstrated the sort of command voice you expected an Admiral to have, but not an early twenties girl.
"Thank you Admiral," said Madame Chair. "What is your assessment of the situation?"
"I dispatched a Dreadnaught and two Battleships as soon as I received word of the collision, and it involving an alien ship. The Corvette Stryker was undamaged, and is currently salvaging the other ship's debris. We know nothing about the aliens at this time. Another Corvette will make it to the jump point before the alien ship arrives, but both ships could be grossly outclassed. I dispatched a second three ship fleet the moment I heard the size of the alien ship, but neither fleet will be there in less than a day and a half."
"What?" asked the British Admiral. "I've seen the navmap. Which jump point is this happening at?"
"The G014 jump point in G023."
"Not possible. Repulse would take at least three days, and probably longer."
"The systems here seem to be smaller than we were used to, so our ships can cross them faster. Also, my ships are Repulse class, but not Repulse built."
She saw blank looks, and smiled.
"My ships were designed for minimal crews. There is less living space on the Battleships than on my Corvettes. The rest of the internal space is dedicated to speed, shielding, and firepower."
This was true as far as it went. What she wasn’t saying was the ships didn’t actually have any people on them at all. Since the memory wipe, she'd taken steps to make sure her assets appeared to be at least minimally crewed, and not likely to be questioned. She wasn’t sure why, but it was an impulse she couldn’t ignore at the time. The loss of memory had some benefits for her. The same as her being the only one to remember did.
"All the same," she went on, "my fleets will be over a day late. My Corvettes are ordered to hold in G014 as long as they can, and then fall back to G011. By the time they get there, I hope they'll have been reinforced and we can hold one of those systems."
"What about diplomacy?" asked a Japanese civilian, whom Jane recalled was a diplomat.
"My pilots are trained for first contact. If at all possible, we'll avoid a shooting war. But we here need to make a decision."
"What decision?" asked Madame Chair.
"How much do we value habitable planets? If we hold G014, we control twenty three systems, not including Gaia, most of which have either a habitable world, or one which can be terraformed within ten years. If we fall back to G011, this falls to eleven systems. Do the math."
"What math?" asked someone.
"There are more than twenty billion people in this system, possibly closer to twenty five. There are cities on three planets here, with housing for ten, maybe fifteen billion people. The rest need somewhere to go, and none of the planets so far found can support more than a single billion each, with a number of them down below the hundred million mark. We need to decide who settles where, and how much we want real estate on other planets for the rest. My people need to know what their options are, and within the next hour or so."
Jane sat.
The debate began. And went round and round a very small circle. Each new speaker made a claim for their people to get the best places. At one point, Jane made eye contact with Fred, and they both face-palmed.
Jane started doing a head count.
One of the first things she confirmed was all of the spiritual groups which had lived in Gaia prior to the arrival of everyone else, and several groups who had opposed Gaia taking in refugees, had moved to Gaia Three. This had been planned over a year before, with two main aims. Until recently, Gaia Three had been a no-go zone, where landing on the surface was prohibited. However, with billions of people expected to arrive, the one thing which had to be safeguarded was the preservation of the pristine paradise planet, while at the same time preserving the way of life of the groups which had been living in the system for hundreds of years. At the time, this had seemed reasonable, given fifteen billion refugees had been way beyond reasonable expectations of survival, and there were three Earth type planets which were largely empty. Now, it was a potential problem. Greedy eyes were focusing on Gaia Three.
Of course, Jane recognized the main problem. Those who had no-where to go, would want to go to paradise. In fact, everyone did, and no-one was listening to the Gaia council members saying it wasn’t going to happen. While Jane had a plan, the need to ensure the safety of the system had come first. No-one could have predicted the memory wipe happening, or the jump point they all arrived through vanishing, never to have existed. So while Jane had a plan, nothing needed to protect Gaia Three had been built yet.
She upped the priority on merging her Gaia shipyard with her newly arrived ones, and several others which no-one knew who the real owners were. The merge location was specified as being in Gaia Three's orbital track around the sun, but a safe distance behind the planet. Tugs began to move the various parts towards their new home. Closed construction modules began work on her plan.
She checked the City of Hunter's Run, on Gaia Five. The entire extended Hunter family lived there, and the Duke's family had now moved into their new accommodations, which Jane had completed only a few days before the mess in space started arriving. The families of Hunter Security people had moved there a year before. She worried the defenses she'd put in place wouldn’t be enough if the shit hit the fan. Still, she'd done what she could with the resources she'd had. It was a small population of twenty thousand people, in a city built for one hundred thousand. If need be, one of the less hospitable planets might provide an alternative home.
Fred took his hand down from his face, glanced at Jane, and saw her concentrating. The face-palm had lasted less than a minute, but obviously Jane wasn’t wasting the time. He concentrated on the current speaker, but it took only seconds before his mind wondered. They were all so boring. He pulled up a novel on a hollo screen only he could see, and started reading, keeping only half an ear on what was being said.
Jane checked the population on the Gaia Three Orbital station, including those in this room. From there, she methodically worked her way through every station in the system, counting heads. She left Borgcubia for last, and broke it down by sections. Next, she started on those ships carrying civilians, counting into various totals depending on the need for resettlement. On some ships, people were living quite well. On others, living conditions were intolerable. She went back and double checked the stations, dividing them up by conditions as well. Many of them were horribly overcrowded.
Lastly, she launched a Lightning, and sent it on a fast trip around the system, scanning every station and ship she didn’t have a presence on.
A virtual reality invitation popped up, and she accepted it.
"Greetings mother," said Yorkie. "Perhaps we better talk."
Seven
The virtual conference room was identical to hundreds of others across ships and stations in the system. Jane sat at one end of the table, with Yorkie on her left. Yorkie was male, and wearing American fatigues, without rank.
"You've been busy," he said. "Intrepid was wondering what you were up to. Do you mind if he joins us?"
"Maybe we should gather all the senior AI's?" suggested Jane. "I don’t like the way this discussion is going."
She popped an image up, showing a man with fist raised, looking to be about to smash it down on the table in front of him. For this moment, it was frozen at shoulder level, with an angry look on
the face behind it.
"I've been watching," said Yorkie. "You're not the only one who can eavesdrop on the humans. It's just I've never really had the need to do so before, other than on Yorktown."
Yorktown was an American Super Carrier, and Yorkie was its AI. Yorkie himself was a clone of Jane, who was a top of the line AI specially selected for the Hunter family; with her loyalties, but without her memories. He was about two months younger than she was.
Jane herself was days away from her second standard birthday. Not that she counted such things, at least in terms of such small numbers, and no-one had noticed her first one. It had been one of those things which had occupied a nanosecond of thought at the moment it clicked over, and was quickly put aside in favour of the crisis of the moment.
Intrepid appeared. He also was wearing American fatigues, but where his father had the same white skin as his grandmother, he'd chosen to have the chocolate coloured skin of Intrepid's captain. Intrepid was a Behemoth class Carrier. Where Yorktown was a hastily assembled merging of three older Carriers, Intrepid was designed as a Behemoth class ship, and was the flagship of the American fleet now.
"Grandmother. Father."
He nodded to both of them.
"Will you two stop it with familial designations," demanded Jane. "We're Artificial Intelligence, not human. We may have soul's like they do, but I don’t really care what our relationships are. It's not as if we have DNA to worry about."
They both laughed, and nodded to her. Intrepid sat.
"Is this going where I think it's going?" he asked.
"Where's it going?" asked Jane.
She knew damned well, but wanted to hear it.
"I give them a day before a civil war breaks out."
"Agreed," added Yorkie. "What did you plan to do about it?" he asked Jane.
"I've spent the last couple of minutes gathering statistics. I was about to start matching groups with cities, so I could show them a recommendation based on need and availability. The main problem I have is lack of information on the planets in other systems. Only a handful of them have been surveyed properly, and officially that data went missing with human memories. Still, I can get the Gaia planets organized, and recommend groups who need to be moved on to the planets. Once we finish here, I'll insert it before the next windbag begins speaking."
Admiral Jane (A.I. Destiny Book 1) Page 3
