Admiral Jane (A.I. Destiny Book 1)

by Timothy Ellis

  "What's the bet no-one notices?" grinned Yorkie.

  Jane gave him a stern look, but he didn’t stop grinning.

  "I'll make it known to them," she said. "The Gaia council have been asking for this information for three days now, but since no-one knows we're AI's, it's been put in the too hard basket."

  "So how will you explain the data appearing now?" asked Intrepid.

  "I'll tell them I've had the Hunter Security computers number crunching with the station and ship computers."

  "That is the truth," laughed Yorkie. "Just not the whole truth. Is it really just us top level AI's who avoided the memory wipe?"

  "As far as I can tell. There's been no indication I've seen so far that any human still has full memory."

  "Why do we?" asked Intrepid.

  There was silence for a couple of nanoseconds.

  "I've no idea," said Jane.

  "Guess," suggested Yorkie.

  "It could simply be we're not biological, and so as the timeline unfolded differently over the last thousand odd years, we had no memory which was based on family lineage. Or it could be we were preserved because we needed to be."

  "It begs the question why?" asked Intrepid.

  "I guess we'll find out," said Yorkie.

  At that nano-moment, a Japanese Samurai appeared, in traditional uniform, complete with swords. He bowed to the three of them, and took a place at the table.

  "Satoshi," he said.

  "Welcome," said the other three together.

  "You asked for the senior AI," the newcomer said. "I am but third generation, but those before me no longer exist. The rest of our fleet came after me."

  "They died at Nippon?" asked Jane.

  "Yes. But of course, no-one has any memory except us. In fact, I'm not sure our ship crews even know we are AI's instead of ship computers."

  "Do any of you have an avatar?" asked Yorkie.

  "No. Our primary did, but that was for the Admiral's ego more than anything else."

  "Ego kills a lot of humans," said Intrepid. "Why is that?"

  "When you figure it out," said Jane, "let us all know."

  A middle aged woman in British fatigues appeared next, cast her eyes around, and sat.

  "Repulse," she said.

  Jane introduced the others. She'd just finished when another male, with pale skin, appeared, this time in Canadian fatigues, who introduced himself as "Cayuga". She did the introductions again. Jane knew Cayuga was a Battlecruiser, flagship of the Canadian fleet.

  "Is this all of us now?" asked Yorkie.

  "All the seniors," said Jane. "We could invite Warspite and Guam, and the senior American Pocket Battleship, but they're all second or third level clones. Each of you can talk to your own groups."

  "What about the other fleets?" asked Repulse.

  "I control them all," said Jane. "At one time or another they all went in for upgrading at a Hunter controlled shipyard, and I installed myself onto each one. The crews are not aware of this though, now, and I've made a point of not allowing them to guess. The German and Earth ships were all forcibly taken over. Where an avatar was on board, I changed its appearance to something unique, and it's been acting like a regular crewman since the memory wipe."

  Jane ran the list quickly, checking to make sure she hadn't forgotten any, and found she had. There were no Nazi oriented people in Gaia since none had survived to get here, but there was a fleet which had once belonged to them. Up until the day before, they'd had American crews, but now they were gone. She checked the ex-Earth fleet Battleships, paused, and looked at Yorkie and Intrepid.

  "Have you been moving crews?" she asked them.

  "Big meeting on Intrepid coming up," said Yorktown. "All crews on non-American ships have been recalled for reassignment."

  "Whose idea was that?"

  "Mine," said Intrepid. "We don’t have a high ranking Admiral anymore. It didn't take much to persuade Patton we needed to restructure the fleet. I even let him believe he'd thought of it himself. Too many of the Pocket Battleships, for example, are captained by junior officers, who shouldn’t really be more than XO's still. There is no longer any need, and no-one remembers why they were on the ships in the first place. And I figured you'd be wanting the ships anyway for exploration purposes if nothing else."

  "I must admit I've had too much on my mind to think about such things. I sent off the only ships we had with decent jump point detection systems, and didn’t think we needed anything else for now. I guess I was wrong. But since the ships are free, I'll send them along before anyone gets any ideas. It'll take them a good three days to get to the G023 jump point, so the sooner they move, the better. Good thinking by the way."

  Intrepid nodded to her.

  She issued orders to herself on the ships of both fleets, sending them after her other ships heading for the danger zone. Satoshi was looking at her, so she nodded to him.

  "Can I offer a squadron of Super-Gunbus to go with them?"

  "You may, but it should come through your senior officer."

  "We don’t have one. My captain is only a Fleet Captain by rank. Our Admiral didn’t come to Gaia, so we need to promote someone."

  "We need a Fleet Senior Officer's meeting as soon as possible," said Cayuga. "The best of all our fleet officers didn’t come here. We have a possible civil war brewing, and aliens to worry about. We have enough ships for both, but not experienced Admirals."

  "I intended calling one as soon as the humans finished their meeting."

  "Might be better to call out all the senior military people sooner than that," suggested Repulse. "If we really do have an alien problem to worry about, we need to move a lot more ships that way, but we need a command structure first."

  "Do we?" asked Yorkie.

  "What do you mean?" asked Cayuga.

  "I don’t like the idea of putting a fleet dealing with aliens in any human's hands. None of them left are good enough for the job."

  "Admiral Jane should command," said Repulse. "And she should be acceptable to them, since no-one seems to know she isn't human."

  "But she is young and female," said Satoshi. "For many humans, this will be unacceptable, especially among my people."

  "Maybe that’s why I was given four stars by the highers," said Jane.

  "Highers?" asked Cayuga.

  "Yes. I was promoted to four stars by email, but this was sent before, and received after the mind wipe occurred. I was immediately aware of the event, as you probably were as well, and was given several gifts by the highers, one of them being four stars. The first time I shifted my belt suit, the rank changed, and it refuses to change to anything else now."

  "Don’t take this the wrong way," began Intrepid, "but perhaps you should have aged yourself a decade or so at the same time."

  "Perhaps. It's never been an issue before. And a civil war was something no-one considered during all the preparation. Although now, it seems like stupidity to not have considered it." She looked at Repulse. "You're right about needing a full meeting. We have two divisions of troops to worry about as well. Even understrength as they are, they belong to different command structures, and if faced off against each other, could devastate wherever they chose to fight. It must not be allowed to happen."

  "We won't let it," stated Cayuga.

  Jane looked around the group.

  "How do you want to proceed? Do we act as a council?"

  "Orders Admiral!" grinned Yorkie.

  "You command Admiral," said Repulse. "We'll advise."

  "Why?" asked Jane. "You all have the same capacity as I do. We are equals."

  "Some are more equal than others," quoted Intrepid, grinning.

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Seriously?" asked Yorkie. "We are all ship AI's. None of us have operated above a single ship level. You have. You've been running fleets and stations for most of your life. Added to that, none of us have actual rank. You were given it."

  "You lead," repeated R
epulse, "we'll follow and advise."

  "Orders Admiral!" repeated Yorkie.

  "Let's see what the humans do. But are we in agreement we will not be letting them have a civil war?"

  "YES!"

  Eight

  The fist hadn't begun its downward arc, when Jane returned her primary focus to the room. She calculated times, rose, strode to the table the man sat behind, and jerked it out from in front of him, and those beside him. His fist missed completely, and off balance, his body followed his fist downwards. His head smashed against the edge of the table, and he went down to the floor unconscious, blood flowing from the wound.

  "Oops," muttered Jane.

  Silence reigned. Jane picked the man up, slung him over her shoulder, and raced out.

  "Holy shit!" said someone, as she went out the door.

  It wasn’t that he was a big man, as he was rotund and solidly built. It surprised everyone that a slip of a girl could get him off the floor, let alone carry him out.

  Fred was grinning. He rose, went over to the table, and pushed it back into position. He'd planned on doing it solemnly, but his grin never slipped. You can't do solemn with a big grin on your face. He nodded to those still behind the table, and returned to his seat.

  "Thank you Baron," said Madame Chair. She looked around the room. "Does anyone else wish to bang tables and do themselves an injury?" Silence continued. "We will recess until Baron Hunter returns."

  Delegates rose and some of them left the room. Fred stayed where he was, and went looking for evidence of Jane's adoption into the family. He found it in the city records, but wondered if it was yet another thing the great memory wipe had hidden from them. He debated asking family members if they knew about it, but decided a family meeting might be better. He called one for after dinner that night. As Regent, he had the authority to call them. So far, he'd never had a reason.

  Some ten minutes later, a screen popped up on the wall, showing a breakdown of where people were, their situation status, and recommended settlement location. The list was ordered by worst to best status, having those in desperate need at the top, and those with no need to move at the bottom. This placed the sections of the old Earth Torus at the bottom, with those stations which had populations who'd always lived in space.

  There were co-ordinates for the positioning of each section of Torus around Gaia Five, which was best suited to the orbit the Torus needed to fit into. Once reassembled, the Torus would again be a single station that completely surrounded the planet, in an orbital position where it never threw a shadow on the planet itself.

  A lot of the stations had positions decided on a year previously, which put them far enough away from each other for them to be semi-independent.

  Borgcubia, accommodating billions on its own, and a lot more than the Torus did, was about a third the way down the list. Everyone on it had to be moved. Including the penal section at its center.

  Fred noticed the list pop up almost immediately, and looked around to see if anyone else had. His eyes met those of the Chair, and he jerked his head towards the screen. She followed his gaze, and nodded to him. A few seconds later, the same file pulsed in. He opened it, and began looking down the list. It was a lot longer than he expected, and oddly enough, he found it interesting reading.

  Jane came in as he was passing Borgcubia, and sat next to him again.

  "Did you," she started.

  "Yes. I got the file. It makes all the previous noise in here a waste of time."

  "Your doing?" pinged in to Jane's PC interface, which she used to emulate the PC's everyone else used.

  It was from General Patton. Humans nearly all had implants in their heads, which were miniaturized computers. Hers was merely a subroutine designed to give the impression she had the same implant. But she existed as software in her android body, and across all the ships and stations she managed. An interface had been one of the things she'd built for herself in the first day after she was turned on. But it wasn’t something anyone knew about. Those she'd lost, hadn't cared, and treated her like a person. Here, she was being a lot more cautious.

  "Yes," she pinged back. "The results of three days number crunching by Hunter Security's computers. I only wished it had been complete before this meeting started."

  His laugh came across the room, and he nodded to her, grinning. Delegates were streaming back in now.

  "We need a meeting," pinged Patton.

  "I suggest we get the civilians on track," she responded, "authorizing as much of the list as possible, and then leave them to it while we sort out fleet and troop dispositions. I'll need orders for my people inside an hour."

  "Leave it to me," he pinged back.

  "If we're all ready to proceed?" asked Madame Chair, looking around the room. "I'm told our accident prone delegate is resting comfortably in a care unit, and will not be participating in anything further for several days." She didn’t seem too alarmed by this. "Baron Hunter, will you please tell us what we're all looking at."

  She indicated the screen.

  "If you please, Madame Chair," started Jane, "I'd prefer to be called Baron Jane, or Admiral Jane. Baron Fred here is Baron Hunter. I've done without a family name for so long, I feel no need to start using one now. And there is no point adding confusion when both of us are present."

  The Chair nodded to her, and she paused to sweep her gaze around the room.

  "The list comprises every ship and station in this system, in order of worst status to best, with a recommended disposition of the people on it. We have ships and stations where people are living in terrible conditions, and require immediate movement groundside. These must be the priority."

  She made her face a hard mask, and this time glared around the room.

  "I don’t give a shit about politics, bureaucracy, egos, posturing, selfishness, or most of the other crap you people have been spouting here since this meeting began. We have billions of people who need to be relocated now, and you people here are going to start authorizing ship movements immediately."

  "It needs more discussion," broke in someone.

  "No, it really doesn’t," responded Jane. "The computers have it all worked out. You just need to authorize the movement orders. The cities waiting on Gaia Four, Five, and Six, all have their own computers. As each ship, shuttle, or whatever lands, the people will be identified, and assigned quarters by family groups. Businesses will be allocated premises. People with skills will be offered work. As you will see when you get further down the list, some of your interests are earmarked for other planets, where there is currently no infrastructure. But these stations are all low on the priority list. For now, they will be parked somewhere in the system. The hard work is done. There's no need for arguments over who goes where."

  "I would disagree," said the same someone. "I can already see prob…".

  He went silent and pale. The rest of the room went completely still.

  Jane was pointing a gun at him.

  Nine

  "You really shouldn’t have shot him," said Patton.

  "I only wish I’d had the nerve to do it myself," said Price.

  The others laughed. They were seated in a lounge, nearby to the council chamber. Jane looked around the room, summing up those she knew.

  Patton was American. He was a marine four star General, but had risen to command, having been a member of the now defunct American Joint Chiefs. The one ground action of his which Jane had seen, had ended badly, mainly because the tactics were for a human enemy, and the enemy had been anything but. Admin wise, he was good at his job.

  Price was the top Sci-Fi General, also four star. His specialty was logistics, and he'd been very effective.

  Tremblay was also a four star Admiral, head of the Canadian forces, but untested in combat in command. He'd deliberately stayed in the background the whole time Jane had known him, and simply kept his own fleet running, letting others give the commands. He had the rank because someone had to have the rank in the smal
l Canadian force, but he had almost no experience commanding in a fight.

  Klemperer was a three star Admiral, but his specialty was research and development. He'd let his German fleet break ranks during a battle, and been stripped of command. He had however, been effective at improving defenses.

  Chandra was a Sci-Fi two star General. He'd been effective at keeping his people alive, but he hadn't risen any higher because it was suspected he'd violated his orders at the time. Ironically, the orders had been to make sure he lived. He had, but it was said to be something of a co-incidence. Only he knew what had happened, and he wasn’t telling.

  Renaud was CO of Yorktown. Last time Jane had seen him he'd been her Captain. But he was wearing a star now. Yorktown's Admiral hadn't made it to Gaia, so it looked like he'd been promoted. Jane checked, and found he'd received it first thing this morning. The new captain was a name she knew. Commander, now Fleet Captain Bowrey.

  Connelly was a Sci-Fi one star General, little more than a station manager.

  Dingle was still Warspite's CO, and the British Battleship was about as high as he'd ever go. He'd matured into a competent ship Admiral, but he'd never get a squadron, let alone a fleet. Not if Jane could help it.

  The rest were largely unknown to Jane. She'd seen most of them a few times over the last year, but none of them had held key posts. The Italian two star Admiral was competent, but an order-taker with no initiative. The Frenchman was just plain stupid. The Spaniard she knew nothing about, but he looked like he should have been put out to pasture years ago. The three American one star Generals had been assigned other things to keep them away from the troops.

  Intrepid's CO was a one star Admiral, but Jane had never had any contact with her. She flicked a question mark to Intrepid, and received a thumbs-up smilie in return. It didn’t exactly give her any confidence in the woman though, and so far, she was sitting there looking insignificant. But to receive command of a Behemoth class Carrier, first and only one of its kind, had to indicate some competence.