The three officers stepped forward.
"Colonel Crocatoa. You have my thanks for a job well done. Your sector ten military forces secondment to the Kingdom is at an end. However, I hereby offer you a commission in the Kingdom Marine Corp, with the rank of Brigadier General. Should you accept, this will constitute a permanent secondment. Do you accept my offer?"
"Yes sir, I do."
"Colonel Crocatoa, you are promoted to Brigadier General in the sector ten military forces, and seconded to the Kingdom Marine Corp. As part of your duties, you will co-ordinate forces when both are in the field together, and be in charge of the merging of forces over time. Congratulations Brigadier."
He saluted, and Jane returned the salute.
"Brigadier, if any of your sector ten troops wish to continue their secondment, please submit their names for consideration."
The big not-croc nodded, and stepped back, leaving his Majors to face Jane.
"Major Emerson. Major Schaefer. You are both promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. Both of you showed outstanding leadership in the course of both recent engagements, and will now form up an enlarged multi-ship command each, under the overall command of Brigadier Crocatoa. Congratulations."
Both men saluted, and stepped back.
Jane called two senior lieutenants. One was American, and the other German. Both were promoted to Major, since the Kingdom didn’t have the normal rank of captain for ground forces. They saluted, and stepped back.
"I'm pleased to announce all personnel on this ship will be receiving campaign medals, for both the Talisman Quest campaign, and the Brotherhood purge campaign. Your medals will be delivered to your cabins. Updates for suit uniforms will be emailed to you shortly."
"In two deployments, we've proved to four sectors, exactly what Kingdom troops are."
She looked over the ranks.
"We are MARINES! We go in at the shit end! And we can take everything thrown at us!"
"OOHRAH!" bellowed the room in response.
"Dismissed."
Dodgers was surprised to get an email from Jane. It awarded her two campaign medals, even though technically for the Quest medal, she hadn't been either military or a Kingdom citizen at the time. And for that matter, she wasn’t sure firing a single shot for the other medal, constituted a campaign. The medals themselves were being fabricated for her on Seasprite, and she was informed she could collect them when the ship caught up with her.
Being a mercenary back on her home world meant she'd never received medals for services in war time. She smiled to herself, and waggled her tail feathers in delight.
The email contained suit changes, including one for her bandolier, which after accepting, now included two small ribbons.
She couldn’t help herself. She did another tail feather waggle, and followed it by spreading her wings, flapping several times, and folding them again.
The smaller Duke's chamber was almost full. All the Dukes were present, having been summoned by Fred as soon as Jane had gone down. Jane had convened a private meeting with the Dukes earlier in the day. The rest were invited guests, from both the Kingdom, and the sector.
Jane was wearing her dress uniform, with stars and tiara. She stood when everyone was present, and settled.
"Thank you all for joining us today. Earlier today I held awards ceremonies for our military forces involved in both the Talisman Quest, and Brotherhood purge. Two campaign medals have been issued to all ship crews and ground forces involved in either campaign." She indicated the two new ribbons on her own chest. "By special dispensation, the crew of the Seasprite have been recognized as an auxiliary unit, and awarded the Quest campaign medal, the ribbon for which is allowed to be worn on any ceremonial occasion, military or civilian."
She nodded towards where Anna and Jamie sat. They looked surprised for a moment, but smiled back at her.
"Also awarded the Quest campaign medal are Admiral Warspite and Tranquil, and the captains of the Pocket Battleships involved in the Brotherhood purge will each receive that campaign medal as well. Also the crew of the Justine's Pride, while not involved in the actual battles, did play their part in hostilities whilst securing the diplomatic side of the quest, and our ability to send military where we needed to."
They were all in attendance, but at the back of the room. Jane bid them all rise, and they were given a round of applause.
"Fleet Admiral Warspite. Please rise."
Warspite did so.
"You are hereby promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral. Congratulations."
His suit changed insignia immediately, now sporting two stars on his shoulders, and the two campaign ribbons on his chest. He saluted, and Jane returned the salute. The room applauded, and he sat.
"Tranquil, please rise." She did so. "As a member of the AMS, you've never held military rank. But in light of your performance protecting the Quest expedition, I offer you the rank of Reserve Fleet Admiral, seconded to the AMS. Do you accept?"
"I do."
"Congratulations."
The room applauded her. Her AMS uniform, previously without any kind of rank insignia, now sported a single star. She sat.
"Fleet Captains Yorktown, and Intrepid, please rise."
They did so.
"During the Darkness War, the commanding officers of both your ships wore two stars. Since arriving in Kingdom space, neither ship has been fully crewed, and still aren't. Both of your admirals, and their captains, remained behind when the ships came to Gaia. Both of you have been performing as ship captains without proper recognition. I now rectify this situation by promoting you both to Fleet Admiral. You are both given liberty to promote anyone in your command ready for ship captain and XO ranks. Congratulations the both of you."
They saluted, Jane returned it, and the room applauded them as they sat, now wearing one star on their shoulders.
"Anna Romanov and Jamie Anderson, please rise."
They looked at each other in surprise, and stood.
"It wasn’t until I actually touched the Talisman, before I understood why it was so essential for it to be found, and brought to the Kingdom. Up until then, I was supporting an eccentric quest, which became more and more dangerous as it went on."
She looked around the room.
"Everything we do has purpose. We may not know why we do things, but there is always purpose. Anna now bears the Talisman. She saved my existence with it, merely by touching me when I needed the help most. I have no doubt at all Ganesha was instrumental in driving Anna to find it, and come to me at the critical time. The higher beings have played a part in my life since I was first brought online as a lowly ship computer. I've never asked for any of this, never wanted to do anything other than help those I love, but the higher beings will not be denied. What you believe is your own concern. I've met some of the highers, and I accept their need for me to act for them."
She looked at Jamie for a few moments, before shifting her eyes to Anna.
"Jamie has been there for Anna since the day they met, and without him, the Talisman would have been lost to us. Anna is the reason I'm still here."
She paused. The room was totally silent.
"Jamie Anderson, I give you the rank of Baron of the Royal Court, for services to the Crown."
The room exploded with applause, and Jane had to wait for the noise to subside. Jamie looked poleaxed, and Anna hugged him.
"Anna Romanov. The House of Romanov is no more. With your marriage to Jamie, you become a Kingdom citizen, and leave behind your Russian legacy. You are a princess in name only. With my personal thanks for my life, I give you the rank of Baron of the Royal Court."
The room burst into applause again, and this time it was Anna who looked poleaxed. For the first time, it occurred to her Jane was right, and with the deaths of the last of her people, her line had ended. Jane didn’t give her time to brood about it though.
"Jamie and Anna, I've discussed matters with the McLauchlan. The ancestral seat of the McLauchlans n
ever left old Earth. With your rank of Baron, I award you land on the planet below, being a good sized island in the northern hemisphere, with a climate suitable for a Scottish Highlander, and a Russian. A space port is being built as we speak, and you have my leave to build a city, and attract whoever you wish to live there with you."
Both of them were standing there with their mouths open now. Jane grinned at them.
"With the permission of the McLauchlan, and on the day of your marriage together, you will be henceforth known as the Baron and Baroness of Monifieth, said title to be passed to your heirs in perpetuity."
The room lost it.
It had taken a lot of discussion to obtain the approval. Jane had originally suggested an island on the Scot World, but the politics made this impossible, and Mac had made it clear he didn’t need a new battle in his own council, even though he supported the idea. She'd had to convince Sarah to part with an island instead, as regent for Duke Michael. It had taken pointing out the new Barony would be a vassal to the Duke, and pay taxes, even though the Barons themselves were vassal to Jane herself. It was a bit complicated, but Jane would make sure it worked. She would need to spend some time with the new Barons to make sure they understood.
The formal part of the meeting ended in congratulations and hugging, and Jane announced a buffet afternoon tea was in the next door large meeting hall. The room began to empty, but she pinged the new Fleet Admirals, the Dukes, and the court Barons with the exception of Anna and Jamie, to remain. She waited for everyone else to leave.
"Warspite is currently doing warfare classes. The new Admirals are ordered to attend. So are the Barons and Squires."
She looked around the Duke's table.
"I'd like you all to attend as well. As Dukes, should the Kingdom go to war, you may be called upon to act as either Admirals or Generals. We have only two experienced Admirals, besides myself, and only a single experienced General. I've today promoted a new Brigadier, and while we have other generals, none of them have good field experience. Duke Price here is well past being a field officer, but with Warspite, he can train you all to replace him."
Price nodded. He'd been expecting this for some time.
"You want us to attend the classes as well," interrupted Fred.
"Yes. I won't make it an order, but it would be best if you all had some training. And since you're all here, and Warspite is doing classes, it seems an opportune time for it."
"Are you worried about what happened to you happening again?" asked Mac.
"Yes. I almost bought it, and while we AI's are hard to kill, it's not impossible either. Its time I stopped being a one AI band. You all need to step up, in case I fall one day."
"You'll live forever," said Queen Lis, grinning.
"Who knows? In theory I could, but I almost didn’t. You need to be ready in case I don’t."
"Me too?" asked Sarah.
"You especially. One day Michael will be Duke of the planet below us. He'll need military training. In the meantime, should it ever happen that the world below needs defending, and none of the rest of us are here to lead, it will fall to you until Michael comes of age."
"Ok, but I can't do full days."
"None of us can," said Fred. "We all have responsibilities to attend to."
"Warspite will adapt the classes to suit you all. And now he can legitimately be in more than one place at the same time without freaking anyone out, he can also return home with each of you, and continue the training at whatever speed you can manage." Warspite nodded. "At some point I will send General Price to each of you as well, so he can instruct you on how to be a General, beyond what he's able to do during Warspite's classes. His main job of converting soldiers into Marines, is almost done."
Price nodded. He'd been wondering what came next for him, and the last thing he wanted now was an active command. Administration was his thing, and he was looking forward to retiring from military life completely. As the world he now had responsibility for grew, his Duke responsibilities were growing. At some point being the Duke would be a full time job. Training troops could be done by others now. Training generals he could do as well, and once complete, he could start thinking about settling down on his own planet.
Jane grinned at everyone.
"Now let's join the party next door."
Snark opened the email from Jane, and found he was officially a reserve officer in the Kingdom military, with the rank of Fleet Captain. Included were two medal awards, and a uniform specification.
The next two emails were from Patters and Sissness, who'd had similar emails, and wanted to know if he'd had one. Patters had been offered a reserve Marine Lieutenant rank, and Sissness the same rank in Kingdom Intelligence.
Seasprite walked in carrying two small boxes, herself wearing the two ribbons on the fur of her chest. He opened both boxes, and found the actual medals.
"Bloody mop head!" he exclaimed.
Fifty Six
Cosmos had proved a lot harder to restore than anyone had thought. The ship's computers had been wiped clean, this much was obvious. But the ship refused to load even the most basic of command sets.
Stryker sent Phoenix2's repair droids to determine what the problem was, and found all the electronics across all the ships wiped completely clean, including the hard code within the nano-chips. In essence, every single computer needed to be rebuilt from scratch.
Cosmos and her sisters needed a shipyard. But getting there and back would take too long.
They took all the damaged repair droids to Phoenix2's small fabricator, and replaced all the electronics in them, before reloading the software. As each one came online again, it was sent to work on Cosmos' series of fabricators, starting with the smallest ones first. Once the fabricators were working again, they started on the massive task of replacing the electronics of six capital ships, and a lot of small ones. Only when the big ships were fully operational again several days later, did they begin on the next massive task of repairing all the drones.
Jane sat in the admiral's chair the whole time, and didn’t move until the special body fabricator was operational again. Once a body was waiting for her, she cloned to it, stepped out of the alcove to get a suit from the bin, and shifted into herself. She retained control of the combat droid, but returned the suit to a belt. It took up a marine guard position by the door at the back of the bridge, while Jane resumed her position in the big chair.
Once Cosmos was operational again, at least in terms of basic functions like controlled flight, Stryker took the helm position, and the ship left its long orbit, and returned to the jump point. They jumped back into the previous system, and immediately connected again with the coms network.
Janine was waiting for the call, and immediately sent a backup package to reload the ships to their factory defaults.
The bodies Walsh and his crew had left behind were found to be in the same condition as the ships had been, and were scrapped. The special fabricators began replacing them.
Walsh stepped out of the alcove, took a suit, shifted, and walked onto the bridge. He greeted Jane and Stryker, and took his place in the captain's chair. He began the process of tailoring his systems the way he'd had them before.
Jane was amused to note the two stars on his shoulders. In theory, she should have authorized the second one, but in practice, as CEO of a civilian outfit, he could rank himself as he liked. Tranquil was technically his junior, now given a star, and it made sense he had a higher rank. She made a point of not noticing.
As a body became available, the rest of his crew walked out of the alcove as well, and each one went to their own ship. Each began the same process as Walsh, as soon as the reload for their ship was complete.
Darlene was the last to step out, and she headed to her quarters to begin the task of recreating their libraries. She was very glad she'd always backed up everything to the custom computer system storage she'd rigged up in permanent quarters on HR4. She'd collected too much information fr
om too many sources now, to risk losing anything. Back on HR4, she started working on yet another level of storage, making sure there was always a full copy on each of the core worlds of the Kingdom.
The AI's began to pair up. Yorktown took the XO position on Cosmos. Intrepid joined Carl Sagan, Bill Paxton joined Ann Druyan, Guam joined Steve Soter, and Cayuga joined Neil deGrasse Tyson. Satoshi remained on Phoenix2 with another Stryker avatar. The senior AI's all took the XO positions, and began cloning themselves to mid-level AI needing launchers and turret control positions. With the capital ships themselves fully back online, the captain AI's began cloning to all the drones as they were repaired.
Once repairs were finished, the repair droids began on the stocks of comnavsats, this time adding additional firewall capacity, specifically to keep the new enemy out.
It was another day before Cosmos jumped back into what was now being called, the danger zone. The Cruisers launched, the drones launched, and the process of mapping the system began.
With one significant difference. The inhabited planet was given a wide berth, with no ship or drone approaching any further than the next further out planetary orbit. There was still a risk of random observation if the right sort of telescopes existed, but flight paths were computed to minimize any flyby between an object in the system, and the inhabited planet, which might result in ship or drone being spotted against a different coloured background. The inner planets were completely ignored.
The system turned out to have two more jump points. Standard mapping protocols began again, and the task of mapping the entire space began.
They left the newly modified comnavsats as usual, but the one which would join this space to the wider network was left turned off, as a safety precaution. When Jane decided it was safe, the comnavsat would need to be manually activated, using a special external switch, designed in for this sole purpose.
Jane wanted to know several specific things, before she took any further action. How many inhabited planets were there in this region of space? Was anyone capable of between system travel? What system defenses were there?
A.I. Destiny 6 Leader Jane Page 15
