"How effective were their weapons?" asked a German delegate.
"The Admiral didn’t say. She did say they had twenty five Cruiser sized warships, while the Admiral has two Dreadnaughts, four Battleships, and a Corvette. Presumably, they matched out fairly evenly. Although since the larger ships are all drones, hits on them don’t matter as much as hits on a large crewed vessel would."
"Do they pose a threat to us?" asked Queen Liz.
"This has not been determined yet. They are still sending their huge seeder ships, as the Admiral calls them, but we have Corvettes at the G014 jump point in G023 now, and they can snag the ships using grav sleds and tow them to an already seeded planet. The battle fleet on the other side will destroy any ship which gets through. At this point, unless it turns out they have a significantly bigger fleet than seen so far, our fleet dispositions should be more than adequate."
"Thank you Colonel," said the Chair. "You will keep us up to date with developments?"
Jane nodded to her, and sat.
Numerous pings came in with requests for further information, but she wasn’t going to say much more than she already had. The last thing she wanted anyone to know was the aliens were technologically inferior. There was too much pressure already for new planets to move to. If some of the delegates knew more and perhaps better planets could be obtained by going to war with a species less able to defend themselves, there would be calls to do so. Starting a shooting war while preventing a civil war, wasn’t in her game plan.
The meeting continued, and they moved ever slowly towards an amicable settlement of who moved where. The movement of people down to the planets continued. Fred's occasional glances at her cleavage also continued.
Jane-Justine settled down to monitor what was going on around her, while at the same time, she, Repulse, and Cayuga, kept up with the feed coming from A001.
Thirty Six
Concorde towed the alien ship back to its planet. Just outside of planetary orbit, the fleet of twenty four ships had formed up again. This time they had a station with them.
"Missile platform?" asked Walsh.
It was a lot larger than one of the ships, although built along the same design lines. Mid way along it, it had what looked like another ship poking out from it, presumably to allow it to be moved into the line of advance of a hostile force, from wherever it normally orbited.
"Yes. But it fires a dozen at a time, and while they are bigger missiles, it's no threat either."
"How do you know that?"
"Their computer wasn’t all that hard to hack, once I gave it some power. I'm still working on a translation algorithm though. I've got numbers pegged, can recognize shapes like the station blueprints, but still working on the alphabet."
"So we still can't talk to them yet?" Jane nodded. "I wonder what they'd do if we blinked lights at them?"
Jane smiled. Walsh had no idea he'd just suggested something out of an ancient flat screen entertainment.
"They'd probably shoot at us again."
"So what are we going to do?"
"Go with plan A, and deposit their ship on the planet before the survivors run out of air."
Jane formed the big ships up into a cylinder formation, with Concorde and the alien ship in the middle. As a single unit, the fleet aimed for the planet at an angle to the alien fleet, with the hope they wouldn’t move, and so would be firing into the side shields, leaving the two inside ships fully protected.
The aliens opened up at their maximum missile range, but Jane blew past them so fast they only managed three launches. It was fast for them, not for Jane. But fast enough to take them to the atmosphere. They took some hits, but not enough to worry about. The big ships peeled away and continued into a planetary orbit, which would see them stay well away from the missile platform, at least until they moved it again. Once out of line of sight with the alien ships, the lead Dreadnaught launched a comnavsat.
Concorde extended its shields around the alien ship as well, and started down.
"What's wrong with this picture?" asked Jane, half way down, on a no break eggs course.
"Context?" asked Walsh.
"No city," said Darlene over the coms. "There looks like a small town down there on one continent, with what might be a spaceport next door, but it's hardly what I expected for an alien colony."
"When did you get interested?" asked her husband.
"It's an alien planet dear. Think what sort of library they might have."
Walsh sighed. Jane couldn’t help but chuckle.
"She's right. The planet is very sparsely populated, which surprises me. As well as this town, there are small population groups dotted around, but they appear to be nomadic."
"Low tech agricultural society?"
"They're not low tech. The sensors are picking up the same level of tech as their ships have, which means the town and spaceport are as advanced as they appear to be. It may be agricultural in nature though. There is a lot of vehicular activity going on down there, between the isolated groups, and the spaceport. Oh."
"What?"
"There are a lot of ships in the spaceport, and some of them seem to be at different levels of tech."
"So it’s an agricultural trading planet?"
"Could be."
Jane steered well clear of the town and spaceport, but decided to land the alien ship in an open area which wasn’t under cultivation, some distance away. With the transport they had on planet, it wouldn’t take too long for someone to pick up the surviving crew.
Once they were low enough to breathe, Jane withdrew her shields from the alien ship. Slowing down was the easy part, and as they approached her designated landing area, the ships slowed down to slightly more than a hover.
The last part of the drop didn't really go to plan. The dynamics were all wrong, and as soon as Jane tried to hover for a controlled landing, the grav sled snapped clean off, and the alien ship dropped the last twenty meters to crash into the sandy surface below.
"Oops," said Jane.
"I take it you've never done that before?"
"Nope. Used the grav sled a lot, but always in space. I guess the lesson there is, leave the shields in place until the last second."
Walsh thought about that one.
"I don’t see how the shields would help."
"Localized field within the area of the shields. Offsets gravity effects. Perhaps not as much as in the gravity well above the planet, say what you find between a planet and a moon, but there is a lessening of gravity within the field."
"So once you turned it off?"
"Gravity was normal for flying objects. But once we stopped, the only thing holding the ship up, was the grav sled's connection to Concorde, which wasn’t designed to take that much load."
"Hence oops."
"Indeed."
"Now what?" asked Darlene.
"Now we land nearby, recover our droids, and see if the natives are appreciative for being alive still."
"And if they're not?"
"Walsh will probably get shot."
There was silence. Walsh looked at her in shock.
"Joke!" exclaimed Jane, laughing.
Thirty Seven
Concorde landed a few hundred meters away to one side of the alien ship. It was listed over onto its undamaged wing, so very few guns were now capable of ranging on them, if it had power, which it didn't. There was no sign yet of survivors.
Jane led Walsh down to the Armoury. A half dozen combat suits stood in the charge bays, although the ship carried twenty all told. The rest were in storage. Combat droids and security droids stood in their ready bays. She led him over to a rack of guns.
Jane dropped the cloak on her guns, and removed the right side Gatling stunner, placing it instead on her left hip, where a holster formed for it. This put both stunners on her left side, one for each hand. She took down a Long Gun, and its holster appeared on her right thigh.
Walsh was looking at her with interest. She took dow
n one of each, and handed the stunner to him.
"Gatling stunner. Fires six half power pulses in the same time a normal laser will fire one. Good for taking down multiple people quickly. When you change them to be lethal, they won't kill with only one shot either, so very useful if your intent is to injure rather than kill."
"I've never seen them before."
"Not many have. A friend of mine loved them. I was given them to start with, and quickly found I preferred them as well. I made a modification to mine, so I can switch between laser and stunner without having to do it with the hardware bolt. Probably illegal, but no-one ever looked. These are all the same."
"Why the need to switch?"
"Most stations won't allow anything but a stunner to be carried on the person. If you go groundside, or board a hostile ship, anything goes, hence the need to swap."
"How did you do the holster?"
"It's part of the gun's software which uploads into the suit's. I loaded it for you when you did your body change. Just move the gun to where you want it."
He moved the gun towards his right thigh, and a holster appeared for it. He shoved the gun in.
Jane handed him the other gun.
"This is a Long Gun. It's designed for long range sniper work, within a station environment. So it's not as effective as a proper sniper rifle, but it's much better at longer ranger than the normal hand laser. Close in, it's very effective."
"Your friend again?"
"Yes. He was given one by a grateful gun merchant. He wore them like I do now. Long Gun on the right, both stunners on the left. I tend to leave the Gatling's on stun, and the Long Gun on full laser. Gives you either option in a hurry. But I can change any of them either way in the time it takes to draw. On stations though, I generally only wear the Gatling's."
He practiced bringing the gun up to fire a few times with both hands, handed it back to Jane, pulled the Gatling stunner out, swapped it to his left thigh, retrieved the Long Gun from Jane, and holstered it to his right thigh.
Jane's guns vanished again. Walsh gawked at her. She laughed.
"Find your gun menu, and the cloak option. Turn it on, and the suit makes it appear like you aren’t wearing a gun at all. It's not foolproof, but it works most of the time, since people don’t stare at you long enough to see the distortions as you move. You need to turn it off in order to draw the guns, since they are actually covered over by the suit. I leave a toggle on my HUD all the time now."
"HUD? Ships have Heads Up Displays on the main screen. Um, you have a HUD as you walk around?"
"Sure. Takes a bit of getting used to, but I put all sorts of info up on it as I walk around. Saves me needing to go looking for it."
"Don’t you walk into things when you're concentrating on HUD stuff, instead of looking where you’re going?"
"No, never happened. I shift in and out of AI time so fast I can fully read the HUD in less time than the average human eye blink. There's nothing too it."
"Is there a manual for all of this?"
Jane laughed, shook her head, and started walking to the main airlock.
"You know what they say about manuals?"
"What?"
"When all else fails, read the manual. In the meantime, its only real use is to prop up your desk."
"Huh."
"Of course, that was back in the days when manuals were on paper."
"Are you that old?"
"No, but it feels like it sometimes."
Walsh followed along behind her as they quipped. Behind him, the combat suits backed out of their bays, and followed. In turn, they were followed by a dozen combat droids. Suits and droids collected Pulse Rifles as they went past the rack.
At the bottom of the ramp, Jane looked back, causing Walsh to do the same. The combat suits and droids formed a semi-circle around the top of the ramp. Jane saw Walsh eyeing the guns.
"Pulse Rifles. Essentially a heavy blaster. Puts out a pulse sufficient to blow a hole in an unarmored person. It's not the most powerful weapon I have, but I don’t want to use the Meson Blasters if I don’t need to." Walsh looked confused. "The Meson will punch out the whole chest area of an unarmored person. Particularly the updated version from the end of the war. You came into it so late I guess you were never issued any of the guns. By that time, the threat of being boarded was practically zero, since it'd never happened. Well, it was never allowed to happen, which is the same thing."
She looked at him.
"You do know how to fire a gun?"
He looked startled, and nodded.
"Apparently so, but I don’t remember ever training with one. Damn this memory loss!"
"Can't be helped. Let's go see if we can get a thank you."
Walsh snorted. A salvage droid pulled up in front of them, so they jumped aboard the sled. Another one zipped past them carrying the ship's grav sled, and one of the repair droids left on board the alien. Jane projected the repair time, and found it should be done before they needed to leave. There were a few variables on the latter though.
The droid took them to an airlock on the Bridge level. It opened as they stopped next to it, and they stepped through both open doors. Inside they found a lot of debris, and a repair droid working on getting a door open. They waited while it finished cutting the hinges, and pulled the door right off. The floor was at a slight angle now, tilted as the ship was, but their suit boots kept them upright without effort.
Inside was a group of the aliens. They were all armed.
Jane held her hands out palms up, to show she wasn’t armed.
"Greetings," she said.
The aliens all fired at once.
Jane braced herself, Walsh didn’t.
Walsh was propelled off his feet, and flew back into the nearest wall, crashing to the deck.
Back on Concorde, Darlene screamed.
Thirty Eight
Jane-Justine flinched as the feed of her taking a chest full of solid metal merged with her thoughts. Cayuga and Repulse dragged her into AI mode immediately.
"Are you alright?" asked Repulse.
"Chest full of old style bullets," said Jane. "Nothing the suit can't handle. It was upgraded to handle them a long time ago now."
"These aliens are certainly shoot first," said Cayuga, "and stay silent afterwards types. Should we be upping the threat level?"
"No need. While a single Corvette of ours might have a problem if it came up against their fleet alone, nothing else of ours will. And one on one, even our worst Corvette will take out a single Cruiser of theirs with ease. The fleet has orders not to allow any ship into G014. It's enough for now."
"If you say so," said Repulse.
"I do," replied Jane with a grin.
A full forty five seconds away, only Jane moved, doing a forced hop off the deck, as her suit transferred the momentum of the hits downwards, and out the bottom of her feet. The aliens just stood there, frozen in shock. Walsh lay where he'd fallen. So Jane received the AI meeting before anything else happened.
Walsh stirred, and to the obvious horror of the aliens, began to stand up again. Eyes flickered from Jane, to Walsh, to Jane's Gatling stunners being drawn, and still they didn’t move.
Jane blasted them all down. Walsh had a gun out by the time he regained his feet, but there was nothing standing left to shoot at. They both re-holstered.
"Are you okay Pat?" came from Darlene.
"Sure Hunny. Sorry about that. I'm still getting used to switching between modes. I was already off my feet before I realized I should have switched up, braced, and come down again. I'll know for next time."
"Will there be a next time?"
Walsh looked at Jane. She nodded.
"Most likely. There's something absurdly hostile about these aliens. They must be paranoid or something."
"We better find out about what," added Jane.
A cargo droid plodded past them, and picked up the nearest alien. It reversed, and took it out.
"Where are you tak
ing them?" asked Walsh.
"Just down to the ground. We'll truss them up, and see what they say when they can't move."
"And the other survivors?"
"We'll do the rounds and see."
Jane led him back out to the salvage droid, and it took them to another airlock.
"Would I have been dead?" asked Walsh.
"If you were still human?"
"Yes."
"No, but you would be bruising up now. The suit was re-designed to take solid slugs at close range, after a friend of mine nearly died in spite of wearing the suit. The reason the suit in protection mode looks so beefy, is because of the extra protection to try and avoid bruising underneath. It only works up to a point though. You lost your balance and went over partly because of the shift of momentum, as the suit sent it to your feet. But that amount of solid metal hitting you would normally cause some damage. But of the two of us, I'm the more vulnerable, since my body underneath is more advanced, and so closer to being human, than yours."
"So we're not indestructible?"
"Of course not. But the suits that supply us with skin and clothes, are the same rating as the top of the line combat suits mercenaries use. We survived a bomb blast which destroyed an entire high-rise building once. Everyone not wearing a suit in the top twenty floors, died. And the suits have been advanced a lot since then."
"So we can take a lot of punishment?"
"Yes. But keep the suit on hair-trigger, in case it needs to add extra protection for your head. No sense in taking chances."
"Damn right!" came through from Concorde.
They arrived at the next airlock, entered, and found the next group of survivors already filing towards the airlock. Jane held her hands out palms up once again, but the aliens all drew weapons and fired at the both of them. This time Walsh kept his feet, and they both mowed down the aliens.
"Clean up on aisle four," muttered Walsh.
Jane shivered. One more reminder of who she'd lost.
They continued onto each of the remaining groups, with exactly the same results. Finally, there was only one single alien left on board.
Admiral Jane (A.I. Destiny Book 1) Page 14
