A.I. Destiny 5 Talisman of Tomorrow

by Timothy Ellis

  "Ye did it," replied Jamie. "Ye and the Talisman."

  "Perhaps the power of the Talisman needs to be channelled through someone, to enable the power to work."

  "Most of those down out there were already dead. Ye did nae kill them. Ye did nae kill the remaining ones either. What did ye focus on?"

  "For the fighting to stop."

  "And it did just that." Jamie looked at Anna quizzically. "I'll ha' to mind my 'ps' and 'qs' around you in future."

  "Only when I'm wearing the Talisman," smiled Anna.

  "Always," said Jamie, and kissed her.

  They were interrupted by Crocatoa.

  "We have a new problem," he said, looking grim.

  Seventy Four

  Patchet had been watching the action further out in the system, while listening to the action down on Minor. He'd managed a snooze at one point, freshened up while nothing much was happening, and picked at some food.

  Now he had a serious worry. The valderian fleet was coming straight at him, and there was only him here to defend the ground forces. He was so far outclassed by sheer numbers, he was wondering if he should simply flee.

  "If anyone is out there listening," he said into an open channel, "I need help here. What do I do?"

  "Is that Patchet?" asked Jane.

  "Yes. Little old bloody me. And my somewhat banged up ship."

  "Can you handle an atmospheric re-entry?"

  "Should be able to, but landing is a whole other thing. Bloody ship is all banged up in that department."

  "You don't need to land. Take her in, and fly around over the ocean until I finish up here."

  "If you say so, whoever you are."

  Jane laughed.

  "I'm the one who's got your back."

  "Take your word for it, Patchet out."

  Patchet pointed his ship in towards the atmosphere, and started down.

  Jane opened a channel to the rest of her fleet, and popped up a screen on each bridge. She was wearing 'slinky red', with four stars on her shoulders. All Admiral mode.

  "Admiral Warspite, you can stop trying to intercept the valderians. Turn your fleet around, and intercept the larger pirate fleet instead."

  "Yes sir. Whose handling the…"

  "I am Admiral."

  "If you don't mind me asking,…"

  "Where am I?"

  Jane laughed.

  "Very close. You'll see me shortly. Carry out your orders Admiral."

  "Aye sir. All ships follow me."

  Warspite turned, and the rest of her small fleet followed, returning to an arrow head formation on the new heading.

  "Come into my parlour," said Jane, "said the spider to the fly. Its breakfast time!"

  The channel closed, and Jane chuckled to herself.

  Concorde's Ride emerged from the atmosphere of the gas giant, where she'd been hiding the whole time, and quickly moved to top speed towards the valderians.

  "Oh my giddy aunt," said Patchet to himself, as he saw the gigantic ship for the first time.

  His sensors soon told him it was not one ship, but six.

  The valderians had seen Patchet by now, and changed course to try to intercept him, but they were too far away. His ship slid into the atmosphere, and soon disappeared from sight, and shortly after, from their sensors.

  They had another worry anyway, and this time it was a big one.

  Five minutes out from the fleet, Jane slowed, released the couplings holding the ship together, and the two Dreadnaughts and four Battleships formed a line abreast formation, wide enough to cover the width of the valderian formation. Now in orbit, and pressed against the gravity well, Jane had the so called high ground.

  Battleship turrets and missile launchers fired at their longest range, and continuing firing as the fleets came together. The line of Battleships leading the valderian fleet, simply vanished. Cruiser and Destroyer guns joined in, as did capital and anti-fighter missiles, and mosquito missiles picked off valderian missiles and shot alike.

  Five minutes later, the fleet was gone. Not a single valderian ship remained.

  In the pyramid below, a glider landed on Patters' shoulder again.

  "You want to see this," said Bottoms-up.

  He flew out again, and the others followed. They found everything still. Combat suits and not-crocs were looking up. Fire was streaking across the sky all over the place, turning the skies above the forest into some sort of fireworks display.

  "Oi?" said a voice on the marine channel. "Scots git and duck thing, are you seeing this?"

  "Aye," said Jamie. "We are."

  Jane listened to the exchanges, and grinned to herself. She sent two Battleships after Warspite, and brought the remaining four ships around to intercept the fourth fleet heading for Minor.

  Ships were already peeling off from both fleets, and heading back towards the jump points. At the points themselves, more than half the ships had already left.

  "Clean up on isles one and two," she said to herself.

  Seventy Five

  The battles were over six hours later. By the time each of the jump points was secure, there were lines of debris stretching four ways across the system. Those ships which had chosen to fight were destroyed. Ships declaring themselves non-combatant, had been allowed to run for a jump point, and depart.

  With the saurian and valderian fleets destroyed, the lesser fleets of pirates, mercenaries, and opportunists, seduced by the Brotherhood into fighting, or as Jane put it, being cannon fodder, split into those who chose to die, and those who chose to flee. Fleeing carried its own price though, as failing the Brotherhood usually carried a death sentence.

  Jane had given them one bone to take away. She told them Brother Prime was dead, and he had been a she. She backed it up with the images Sissness had taken. They knew many would not believe either, but enough would, to help break the hold the Brotherhood had on them. It cost nothing to try it anyway.

  Twelve hours later, the system was clear of all but the remaining Saurians. Jane left a Battleship at each jump point, and herself headed for the saurian ships.

  Seasprite headed back to Minor alone, with a borrowed shuttle. Mouse was exhausted, and slept the whole way.

  Warspite and the rest of the ships spread out across the system, and began clean-up operations, salvage droids filling cargo holds with solid debris. Biological debris was collected onto large chunks of debris too big to fit inside the ships, and were pushed into courses to burn up in the sun.

  By the time Seasprite was in orbit again, the ground forces had spent all day burying the dead. The shuttle touched down in the exact spot as before. Mouse jumped out and greeted everyone, and there was a group hug which lasted quite a while. When they eventually let go of each other, Mouse eyed the duck. Jamie did the introductions.

  Seasprite opened a channel to Snark, and he popped up a hollo everyone could see.

  "Jane has a request for you on the way back," she said.

  "What would that be?" asked Snark.

  "Patchet is flying circles out over the ocean. Go and collect him, and lead him back up here. He can dock to one of my side airlocks. But Jamie, the Dropship is on its way down as well. Head to these co-ordinates," a map appeared, showing a spot half way across the continent, "and retrieve Jane's downed fighter."

  "Fighter?" asked Jamie.

  "Yes," said Patters. "A single fighter took out a lot of the valderian troop transports. They shot it down though."

  "Did the pilot survive?" asked Anna.

  "Yes," said Seasprite, lying. "He was picked up by search and rescue. But the ship needs a salvage droid to pull it out. The Dropship has one on board."

  Snark and Jamie looked at each other.

  "Toss ye for it?" asked Jamie.

  "How does that work?"

  "I toss you in the air, and if you land on ye feet, I take the dropship for the fighter, and you go escort Patchet."

  Everyone laughed, even Snark. In the first case, Jamie had zero chance of t
ossing Snark, and in the second, everyone knew Snark always landed on his feet.

  "I'm too tired," said Snark. "I'll collect Patchet anyway, and go get some sleep. You go do some actual work for a change."

  Jamie was about to respond, when Anna put a hand over his mouth. He grinned instead.

  Anna let him go, and stepped into the shuttle.

  "This isn't our shuttle," she said, poking her head back out the door.

  "We took a few hits," said Mouse. "Ours was destroyed, and the hanger doors have a rather large hole in them."

  "Oh. We'll catch up with everyone's stories after we get some sleep."

  Anna quickly ducked back inside, Mouse, Sissness, and Patters, with Bottoms-up still on her shoulder, followed. Snark looked at Jamie, received a nod, and followed them. Dodgers stayed where she was, the two of them moving back under a tree while the shuttle departed.

  As soon as it was clear, the Dropship landed. It only just fit in the clearing. The ramp came down, and the two of them climbed inside. They found a salvage droid ready to deploy. The ramp closed behind them.

  "Come on up," said Seasprite.

  They walked to the front of the ship, and found the stairwell leading up to the top level. There was no-one in the cockpit.

  "Want to fly her?" asked Seasprite through the coms.

  Jamie didn't answer, but jumped straight into the pilot's seat, and buckled up. A jump seat slid out behind him, and Dodgers perched on it, buckling up as best she could.

  The Dropship shot upwards, leaving a shower of leaves and small branches behind it. Jamie pulled it round onto a course for the downed fighter, and took them up to a respectable height. He looked back at Dodgers.

  "Want to try?"

  "Try what?"

  "Flying our way?"

  "Hell yes!"

  They unbuckled, and swapped positions.

  The chair in no way suited Dodgers, whose feet came nowhere near the foot pedals. Jamie showed her how to change the direction of the ship through all dimensions, using the hand controls only. For a while, the ship flew like the pilot was drunk.

  "Is there anything I shouldn't be doing?" asked Dodgers.

  "Aye. Dinna fly into the ground."

  "How do you land this thing?"

  "Gently. Or if you want to, you get Seasprite or whatever ship computer to land it for you. Docking for example, even I'll leave that to Seasprite, since this is a new ship design for me."

  "Where can I learn this properly?"

  "We have a simulator," said Seasprite. "If you can get a PC fitted at some time in the future, the simulator is built in, and you can fly the ship without touching the controls."

  "PC?"

  "Computer," said Jamie. "We have them inside our heads."

  "Oh."

  Dodgers shivered, but Jamie couldn't tell if it was a good shiver or a bad one. And he wasn't going to ask.

  As they approached the co-ordinates, they swapped again. Jamie brought the Dropship to a hover, over an area of smashed trees. There was no sign of the fighter.

  "You better go down and have a look," said Seasprite.

  "Go down?" asked Dodgers.

  "On the salvage sled."

  Dodgers looked at Jamie, and saw his grin was back out. They unbuckled again, and Jamie followed the duck down to the deployment area. The ramp came down, wind came in, and they jumped up onto the sled. With the ramp fully down, the droid moved out, first hovering over the trees looking for the best way down, and then following the downward path of the fighter as it'd crashed. They found it under the canopy, more or less intact, although a good chunk of the front was missing.

  "The pilot survived this?" asked Dodgers.

  "Yes," answered Seasprite through the droid. "All pilots are suited like you are. It's rare now for a pilot to not survive the destruction of their ship. It only happens in space when they run out of suit air before being rescued. It doesn't mean the pilot can't be hurt, but death is rare as I said."

  They looked the ship over. The rest of it was in good condition, in spite of the crash. Seasprite had them step off and back away, while the salvage droid searched the crash area for anything which had broken off. It dumped a collection of pieces into the remains of the cockpit and cargo area, dropped down to pick them up, and took them to the airlock. The outer door opened, they stepped in, and the droid continued up. When they cycled through inside, they found themselves in a bed sitting room, with kitchen and bathroom facilities.

  "Nice," said Dodgers. "Looks like it's designed for a pilot to live here for long periods."

  "Aye, supposed to be a long range fighter. There's a squadron flying around the cat system these days. The pilots lived in their ships for the whole journey from Hunter Prime."

  "Will you teach me to fly one?"

  "Come to Hunter Prime with us, and someone will."

  There was a loud thump above them, cutting off conversation, and the ship lurched as it started up. A screen popped up, and they watched the ship appear through the trees, and fly up to the Dropship. The droid stopped with the airlock next to the ramp, they cycled through, Jamie jumped across, and Dodgers flew. Inside, another screen popped up, showing another sled sliding out of the rear of the dropship, and attaching at the same place as the salvage droid. The ramp came up.

  Back in the cockpit, Jamie took the controls, and flew them back up into space. The salvage droid docked the Excalibur where the shuttle had been, which itself was docked to a side airlock, and docked the Dropship in its normal position.

  Dodgers stopped at the windows looking out on the Excalibur. Jamie grinned.

  "That one ship," she said, "on my homeworld, would end all wars."

  "Or start them," added Jamie.

  She nodded, turned, and allowed Jamie to lead her into Seasprite. He found a room already prepared for her, and bid her goodnight. At Anna's room, he poked his head around the door without knocking.

  "What took you so long," she said in a husky voice. "Get in here you."

  In he went, locking the door behind him.

  Seventy Six

  While the Seasprite crew slept, the Saurians continued their salvage efforts, watched over by Jane.

  She couldn't help herself, and took the opportunity to invade their computer systems. Like militaries everywhere, automation was viewed with suspicion, and she found no access to anything but databases. She copied them, in case one day she had need to understand these beings. For now, she was content for the remainder of their fleet to return home, and to make sure, they would be shadowed by one of her battleships.

  While she waited, Jane systematically scanned the entire system, trying to ensure they'd not overlooked anything.

  On both inhabited planets, she found media reports of unusual amounts of meteor activity, and assumed debris from exploded ships had been crossing space, and raining down on both planets, burning up in the atmospheres. She laughed as astronomers were ridiculed for posting images of what they were calling unidentified flying objects. Several of the images were fuzzy, but obviously of ships in the recent battles.

  The Saurians completed their salvage operations, turned, and started towards the jump point they'd come in. Jane sent a single Battleship after them, at a non-threatening distance, sent out the salvage droids, launched Concorde, and turned towards Minor.

  On the ground, they spent the night alternating between continuing to bury the dead, and getting some sleep. The gliders were singularly unhelpful, given how small they were in comparison to the dead bodies, but they chatted non-stop with the troops as they worked.

  By morning, the job was done, Havoc was back in orbit, and the Dropships began ferrying troops back to their ship.

  They remained in orbit for another day, waiting for the other ships to return from the clean-up sites. The last to be finished was the Saurian battle sites, which hadn't been approached until after they left. There was very little unused space on any of the ships now. But it was all useful material for recycling at the
Hunter Shipyards.

  The human and not-croc crews took advantage of the down time to recuperate, and in some cases, get medical attention. Most of the not-crocs were now sporting bruises, although none of them considered themselves wounded in any way. Snark took his bruises in stride, and hid them under his favourite red suit. Sissness spent some time in a care unit, and also started wearing an all over suit.

  Anna and Jamie compared bruises after they woke. They'd been too busy with lovemaking to bother before falling asleep. Both of them went into care units for check-ups, but neither had more than minor bruising.

  Snark started getting restless during the afternoon, and found Patters in her exercise area, firing at a target. He did a double take when he saw what she was firing with.

  "What, is that?"

  "Cat sized pulse rifle."

  "Where, did you get it?"

  "Colonel Crocatoa gave it to me."

  "I want one."

  Patters laughed so hard she fell over, and waved her legs in the air. Snark looked hurt, and she laughed even harder.

  Dodgers spent as much time as she could on the fighter simulator, which was actually the captain's chair on the bridge. She'd been surprised to see the exact same setup there, as was on the Dropship. When Snark came in to check on things, he found her there, concentrating so hard, she didn't see him enter.

  When the hollo screen action ended with her blowing up, he cleared his throat loudly. She looked at him, and started.

  "Sorry, am I in your chair?"

  "Mine, yes. Although Jamie likes to think it's his a lot of the time. And no, I don't need it. Once we get back to friendly space, I'm going to get that mop head Jane to design me a proper cat captain's chair."

  "Who's this Jane, and what's a mop head?"

  "You obviously haven't seen a human naked yet." Dodgers shook her head. "They're almost completely furless. Mainly just a mop of growth on the head. The rest, a lot of them have a habit of removing, or so I'm told."

  "Too much information."

  Snark laughed.

  "Jane is Queen Jane of the Kingdom of Hunter's Run, over in sector ten. She's also Leader Jane of the sector ten council. And my friend. Saved my life once. Actually not bad, for a mop head."