"Of course they did," said Queen Liz. "Look at their front man over there."
All eyes turned back to the two Corporates. They looked unconcerned.
"So be it," said Jane. "Excalibur Flight, tag em, bag em, and rack em."
"On it," came back a higher pitched female voice, which no-one connected to Jane.
A missile launched from the lead Excalibur, quickly followed by two more. Expressions of shock came from some of the delegates, but all faces were now glued to the screens.
The missiles impacted the rear of the freighter, all hitting the exact same spot. The first two blasted down the rear shields, and the third hit the main engine. The freighter staggered, but kept right on. Another missile launched, and hit the exact same spot.
Jane sighed audibly. She was beginning to like doing drama for humans.
"Excalibur Leader, less surgical precision, and more damage please."
She ignored the reactions around her.
Six missiles launched this time in quick succession, and these impacted all the way across the rear of the freighter. Its engines cut out completely this time. Instead of entering the atmosphere in a controlled way, it now fell in. The remaining shields flared, and heat began to damage the exposed rear.
The Excaliburs followed, now pulling up around it, the lead fighter trying to position itself in front of and above the front top of the ship. A grav sled slid out under the fighter, and slapped down on the top of the freighter. A few moments followed as the freighter seemed to be fighting the fighter, and the attitude shifted with both ships now heading back up again.
"Which planet?" asked the lead pilot, for the benefit of the delegates.
Jane hesitated for a moment, threw another screen up on the wall showing each of the three planets in the fourth orbit, and settling on the worst conditions on each, where housing was located.
"Six please. Sending you the landing pad to use. By the time you get there, the reception committee will be waiting for them."
"Roger that."
"Where are you taking them?" asked the Chair.
"Gaia Six has a nice unallocated township in its most remote location on the edge of a desert. Everyone on the ship will be issued housing there, including the owner, captain, and crew. The ship will be confiscated, its life support removed, and it will be used as a drone food mover from now on."
Jane issued orders to a squad of her security droids on Six, to head there to manage the relocation. They were all armed with stunners, and there was a support unit of cargo droids with them to move any stunned people to their new homes.
"This is outrageous!" exclaimed the Corporate who'd started it all.
"What part of NO do you not understand?" Jane said to him. "Gaia Three is a heritage listed wilderness planet, which just happens to be the difference between happily fed people and mass starvation. No-one who currently lives on a station or ship in this system will be relocated there, other than the Gaia council members over there."
"But…"
"No buts. The next ship to try it will be destroyed."
"But…"
Jane restrained herself from shooting him.
Twenty Seven
"Madam Chair," said Jane, looking at her. "Perhaps I should explain to everyone exactly what the situation is, since it doesn’t appear to be obvious to everyone."
"Perhaps you should."
Jane walked across the room to stand near the Chair, where she could see everyone, and they were aligned to see her.
"Approximately six hundred years ago, an explorer ship left the home of humanity looking for planets to colonize. Hundreds of years later, the ship ended up here. Those left on board represented spiritual groups looking for a place to live where no-one would want to bother them. They found such a system, and then found their way here."
"This system remained a closely guarded secret for about three hundred years. The population now living on Gaia Three are all descendants of the original colonists, who lived on the other three planets until only a few months ago. The population of Hunter's Run city on Gaia Five moved there a year ago, from out-system."
"Let me make this quite clear. Gaia Three was a total no-go zone for people up until two months ago. The people who lived in this system before you arrived, have made a huge compromise by changing their policy on Three, and moving themselves from the other three worlds in order to give them to you."
"The settlement of Three has been done in such a way so as to ensure zero degradation of the planet as a whole. It will not be taking on more people, since it has too many now. It will continue to provide food for the short term, and once each planet is feeding itself, this will stop and the areas being used for food production now will be returned to natural wilderness."
"This is NOT optional. This is how it is. The people here did not want to take refugees from a war. They were persuaded to do so, and they have done everything they could to prepare for your arrival."
"You will be grateful for what is offered, and you will not make demands on what is not offered."
"And if we think otherwise?" asked the Corporate.
"The Hunter family have been responsible for policing this system since day one. This continues even now. The biggest fleet of warships belongs to Admiral Jane, who is the military leader of the Hunter forces, and now part of the family. The Hunters are Gaia. They support the protection of Three. Anyone who has a problem with this, has a problem with the Hunter family. In this chamber, Baron Fred and Duchess Sarah," Sarah jerked as she heard her title for the first time, "are the face of the family. If you threaten them, or what they protect, you will face me first. If you get past me, you will face Admiral Jane, and I can guarantee you the Dreadnaughts out there are lethal to every other ship anyone else has."
She looked around the room making eye contact with everyone one by one.
"Understand this. Three is a protected planet, which will be enforced. What happened today was the soft option. If it happens again, the ship will simply be destroyed before it reaches the atmosphere. If you take up arms against the Hunter family, the residents of Gaia Three, the Gaia council members sitting over there, or any employee or friend of the Hunter family, you will regret it. This is not a threat. This is simply reality."
"You are the refugees. You have been provided with housing and everything which goes with it, for fifteen billion people, in this system. The rest will either continue to live on stations such as the Torus as they did before, or they will move on to other systems. Anyone who doesn’t like the situation here, is invited to leave explored space immediately and take their chances out in the galaxy."
"I say again, and if we think otherwise?"
Jane initiated a lockdown on all the Corporate stations. Their ships stopped moving. Food and water stopped being delivered to residences and businesses. She looked at the man, and waited. It took only seconds before he was talking to someone sub-vocally.
"What did you do?" he asked.
"Not me," said Jane. "Admiral Jane is monitoring this meeting, albeit with a thirty second lag. She has ordered your stations and ships into lockdown mode, in preparation for you and all your people being exiled from Gaia."
There were shocked expressions all around the room, with a few exceptions. The Gaia twelve looked satisfied, and Queen Liz was positively enjoying herself. Fred was giving her a speculative look.
"You wouldn’t!"
"It's your choice," said Jane. "You agree to abide by the wishes of your hosts in regards Gaia Three, or I have a squad of security guards frog-march you back to your station, and all of you will be on their way to somewhere beyond G023 within the hour."
Jane swept the room again.
"This applies to anyone who wishes to make trouble like this. We do have an overpopulation problem, and one way of solving it is to exile anyone who refuses to accept the rules here. Choose!"
She saw it coming. It was so obviously coming, she had plenty of time to prepare for it. Her suit sna
pped into full protection mode long before the first gun appeared. She stood there and let them shoot her. Four small lasers came out, and all four bolts hit her. She stood there as if nothing had happened.
The four men who had fired, sat there, holding guns out, looking dumbfounded.
Jane shifted back to 'slinky red', and grinned at them. She dropped the cloak on her guns, drew both Gatling stunners, and all four men went over backwards, their guns clattering away across the floor. No-one moved to pick them up. No-one moved.
The door opened, and a squad of security droids in Hunter uniform, looking human, entered. They picked up the four men effortlessly, one of them collected the guns, and they left.
Jane holstered her guns, reengaged the cloak, and walked back to her chair.
"Colonel," asked the Chair, "what do you intend to do now?"
"Whatever this council decides. I suggest to you the beginnings of an insurrection just occurred, and without evidence to the contrary, we must assume this is supported by the people who voted onto this council, delegates with this adjenda. My recommendation is exile to a system within our space, but which won't actually give them a decent place to live. The stations are currently locked down, their ships dead in space. If this council wishes it, I will give the orders to move them to whichever system you wish. G017 or G021 are the furthest away within our space. Both have terraformable planets, although neither is very hospitable at the moment."
Jane sat down.
Queen Liz rose.
"I vote for immediate exile to G021. We are in a very delicate situation, with too many people for known livable planets. We need to send a clear and unequivocal message to any troublemakers of what the penalty for causing trouble is. The last thing we need is any group deciding to take what they want by force. The result could be catastrophic. This council must act, and must act decisively right now."
She sat.
"All those in favour of exile to G021?" asked Madame Chair.
Hands were raised. She didn’t need to count them.
"So ordered. All stations and ships belonging to those who call themselves 'Corporates' are exiled to system G021. Colonel, see to it please."
"As you wish."
Fred stood.
"You have something to add Baron?" asked the Chair.
"In the interests of not alienating these people completely, I suggest we allow them to trade with us normally, the same as any other colony on one of the other worlds. Eleven jumps is a fair distance, and it should be profitable for trading both ways."
He sat.
"Any one object to this proposal?"
There were none.
"So ordered."
"Nicely put," said Jane to Fred in a whisper.
"I've been playing some of those explore and colonize games you recommended," he whispered back.
She grinned at him.
Over Gaia Five, two Battleships began to move towards the Corporate stations. The ships which had stopped, now moved towards their station of origin.
By the time the meeting ended, all the ships were docked, and the station tugs which moved the joined station structure, were moving it towards the jump point. The Battleships took a position on each side.
"Probably the best outcome which could be expected," said Cayuga. "The Admiral was quite tense there for a while. It was probably just as well you never gave him any choices to make."
"You mean he would have made bad ones?" asked Jane.
"No. Not as such. But some of the warships might not have taken the orders to fire, had some sort of conflict broken out."
"I thought we sent all the Corporate ships to G014?"
"We did," said Repulse. "But that doesn’t mean the remaining ships don’t sympathize with other groups."
"Something to watch."
"Indeed," said Cayuga and Repulse together.
"That was bad-arse, Justine," said Fred as they left the council chambers. "Teach me to do that?"
Jane hesitated for a long moment.
"Maybe," she said.
Twenty Eight
Concorde went into a standard orbit of the only habitable planet in the G023 system. Walsh was scanning the planet using the comnavsat he'd just launched. He'd asked for the job, and Jane had been happy to let him.
"Is this planet supposed to be uninhabited?" he asked.
"As far as the notations on the navmap show, yes. It's supposed to be basically habitable, with no animal life larger than a cat."
"That’s what I thought. It's not true now."
"What have we got?"
"Several hundred thousand life forms in the cow range."
"Signs of intelligence?"
"How do you quantify that? I'd hardly call humans intelligent, the way they carry on at times."
"True. How about structures, agriculture, technology, and communications?"
"None, zip, nada, and zilch."
"They can't be indigenous. Any sign of how they got here?"
"There's this."
This looked familiar.
"Is that Battleship sized?"
"Sure is. Not the same shape, but it is buried in the ground quite a way. Single opening in the nose."
"Shall we go down and have a look?"
Walsh was out of his seat in an instant and heading for the hanger.
"Honey?" Jane heard him yell. "Going planet side. You okay?"
"Enjoy."
She followed him out with a grin on her face.
The Lightning landed beside the nose of the mostly buried ship. As they were coming down, they'd seen the remains of a once deep furrow in the ground, where the ship had obviously landed badly. It was overgrown with a lush purple plant.
Jane led Walsh into the open nose of the ship. They had to bend double to gain entrance.
"Cow height?" suggested Walsh.
"You think cows landed the ship?"
"Given how badly it landed, I'd say that’s probably a yes."
The room they found themselves in opened up, so they were able to stand. But there was very little in the way of head room for Walsh. He narrowly missed banging his head, and Jane grinned at his expression.
"Are you regretting choosing a droid body which retained your previous height?"
"Hell no. Ouch!"
Jane started laughing. She pointed to something further in.
"Still think cows flew the ship?"
"Are you asking if I think cows could climb a ladder?"
"Something like that, yes."
"Maybe it's not a cow, just cow sized."
"You want to find out first?"
"Ladies first."
"Chicken."
"Bruck, bruck."
Jane laughed again, and started up the ladder. At the top, she emerged into what was obviously a Bridge of some sort. Walsh climbed in behind her.
"What a hunk of junk," he exclaimed.
Indeed, it did look like junk. Jane looked around for what might be a data port into a computer system. Walsh followed her gaze.
"That?" he suggested.
Jane pushed her index finger up to the indicated spot, and extruded a data filament, which slid into the port.
"Not cows," she said. "Want to try this?"
Walsh put his index finger next to hers, but nothing came out.
"How did you do that?"
"You need to open a tiny hole in the suit first. The probe filament comes from the droid body, not the suit."
Too big a hole opened up to expose the tip of his droid finger, and the filament shot into the port. He adjusted the hole down slowly, until it was just larger than the filament.
"Do you understand any of that?" he asked her.
"Not yet. I'm downloading everything for now."
An image popped up on what was obviously some sort of flat screen.
"Ship schematic?" asked Walsh.
"Seems to be."
The image zoomed in on one section.
"Cow stalls?"
"Empty co
w stalls I think."
The image zoomed out, and then seemed to display multiple decks.
"They filled the whole ship with cows? What is this? Noah's Arc?"
"Noah's cow ship more like. All the stalls are identical. And I don’t think they are stalls. More like some sort of basic cryo suspension chambers."
"Huh? That makes no sense."
"I can think of a few scenarios."
"Do tell."
"Figure them out for yourself."
He shot her a look, but she was concentrating on the download. He was about to ask her what was wrong with this picture, but decided not to. What was wrong was obvious. There was no apparent way of flying the ship, and no indication there had even been a pilot.
He nodded to himself. He didn’t understand why, but it looked like the ship was fully automated, and designed specifically to transport hundreds of thousands of cows to crash land on a planet. It begged the question of why anyone would send that many cows anywhere, not to mention who had sent them.
He followed the download as Jane extracted everything she could from the computer system, crude as it seemed to be.
"Ah," said Jane suddenly, and what looked like a navmap popped up.
Their navmap popped up on a hollo screen next to it. They were almost the same.
"Interesting," said Walsh.
"Tell me why."
"It looks like someone has been mapping this end of the galaxy. But for some reason, they missed the jump point into Gaia. Everything else we know is on there, except for this system here." He pointed at a system five jumps further on, which was not on their own map. "Looks like the original explorers of ours missed this jump point in G036. So neither we nor they made contact while exploring."
"Sloppy work, or interference from above?"
"The latter I’d say. We AMS pilots are pretty good at what we do."
"What are the odds that system has an alien colony in it?"
"I don’t know about a colony, but it's certainly the starting point for this ship."
Jane disconnected herself, and Walsh followed.
"How about we go interrogate a cow?" she suggested.
Twenty Nine
"That is not a cow," said Walsh emphatically.
Admiral Jane (A.I. Destiny Book 1) Page 11
