A moment later, the fire alarm came on, and blared out a sound that made even Jane shiver. She tweaked it, and the volume doubled. Beings began to run outside as fast as they could. The noise shut off once a suitable number were moving.
"Attention please," she said in Owl, loud enough for a lot of beings to wince. "The destruction of this space port is being brought to you by the Kingdom of Hunter's Run, whom the Owls were stupid enough to declare war on."
Those not running, were staring at the nearest speaker.
"If you are an Owl, please stay where you are."
"If you are not an Owl, but are a drug dealer, you have two choices. One, stay where you are. Two, you may return to your ship, so long as you are carrying nothing on your person."
"If you are a local, please return home immediately. A cure will be available soon. You may carry an amount of drug to carry you over for a few days, but no more."
"If you are an addict, please follow the locals. You will be met by local officials, who will see you receive enough drug to keep you alive long enough to receive the cure. If you have a ship, remove it from this area, but land it where the locals are going. You will receive help."
"If you are a visiting trader, please return to your ship. This planet is now closed for business, pending renovations. Any crew who are addicts should follow the locals, so you can be cured."
"All ships must depart within the next twenty eight minutes. Failure to depart will mean your atomized remains will remain here for good."
"Any Owl who wishes to live, is to surrender to local authorities immediately. Leave weapons, drugs, and personal effects behind. If you wear clothes, remove them before exiting the building. Follow the locals, and when you arrive at designated surrender points, you will lie face down in the dirt until told to do otherwise. You will not be harmed, unless you do something stupid, in which case you will be shot. If you attempt to flee in any other direction, you will be hunted down and shot. If you attempt to take innocent hostages, you will be shot, regardless of the fate of the hostage. If you so much as look unhappy, you will be shot. You have two choices. Be face down in the dirt at the designated places, or be shot."
"If anyone doubts my ability to destroy this structure, just remain there until you find out. The galaxy doesn’t need any of you, and will be much better off with you changing into a nice deep hole in the ground. If you want to blame someone, blame the nearest Owl, since as a species, they are so arrogant, they can't recognize their doom when it taps them on the shoulder and says we’d like to be friends."
Jane paused for effect. If she'd been human, she'd have stopped for breath. She didn’t need to, but it felt good doing so anyway.
"Twenty five minutes. If you're not running, then kiss your arse goodbye."
She wondered how many of them actually had an arse, and decided she really didn't want to know. The whole concept of alien arse was something she wished she'd not thought of in the first place. She opened a channel to all the ships on the ground.
"For those carrying cargoes of drugs, I feel I should warn you I have a scanner which detects even trace amounts of the Owl drug on board ships. I repeat, if you have addict crew, they must join the locals leaving the area. Any ship leaving the surface with drugs, purple plants, or any animal or being carrying the poison, will be destroyed."
One ship immediately lifted. Jane locked it up, and turned on the freight scanner.
Ding!
Just to be sure, she brought up the scan data. The ship had three cargo holds, and they were all full of either drug packages, or bulk plant. In crew quarters, six addicted beings showed up, with another two on the Bridge. There were no other life signs, which suggested the crew were all addicted, and they traded the drug to pay for their own habit.
"And we have a winner folks. For those doubting what's happening, pay attention to the sky over the space port, and keep your heads down."
Jane waited for the ship to move far enough away any debris wouldn’t rain down on anyone, and sent a single Battleship pulse down to meet it. Most of the ship simply vanished, and the remainder of the pulse hit the ground leaving a moderately deep hole behind, into which landed the remains of the ship.
"Twenty minutes."
Beings had stopped to see what happened to the ship. Now they started running as fast as they could. Several ships had been off the ground as well, and they immediately dropped abruptly. Airlocks opened, and cargo started being thrown out.
"Ten minutes."
Several thousand beings were now running away as fast as they could.
"It's not possible to empty our cargo bays in ten minutes," came from a ship with stick insects on board.
"You may lift a dozen meters off the ground and move precisely two kilometers to the south. Remain there until your cargo bays are empty. Once you leave, the area will be destroyed."
"Thank you."
The voice didn’t sound thankful, but Jane took it at face value. A dozen ships took off and headed south. The area had very little of value, and was uninhabited. Jane had checked with the locals first, and done her own scans to make sure.
Ships started rising for space now. Jane methodically checked each of them. A second pulse headed down, a second hole in the ground, a second set of debris. Two of the ships immediately changed course for the RV location to the south. The rest came on.
"Five minutes."
One of the ships showed trace amounts of the drug. Jane locked it up.
"Stop!" yelled a frantic voice. "A package broke and we have powder on the deck. It's just one package. A crew member is cleaning it up now."
"You know where to go."
The ship veered so abruptly it almost collided with another ship, which almost did so itself in trying to avoid it. There was a series of near misses, and a flurry of swearing in a dozen languages.
"Two minutes."
Jane scanned the space port itself now. There were only a handful of ships left on the ground. One of them was loading Owls, and a few other races. Jane locked it up, and turned the freight scanner on it.
Ding!
"Attention Owl ship. You have one minute left to rid yourself of any drug from your ship, and get it off the ground. Either move to the south to unload, or move to a surrender area. Do it now, you’re out of time."
Jane shifted into AI mode, and rapidly sampled every single monitor cam in the space port. They showed a smattering of beings across it, but none of them were trying to leave. The administration offices had the most beings, predominantly Owls.
The Owl ship lifted after a few packages and crates were heaved out the airlock at the last second. She checked it again, and it was now clean. She checked it was heading to a surrender point, and gave it enough time to get outside the blast range.
Concorde's Ride tilted over so all her Battleship guns could fire. Jane locked up the exact center of the space port.
With her finger on the trigger, she used her other hand to wave up a screen showing the local Fly media coverage of the event. They had a good image of the space port in the distance showing.
She pulled the trigger.
On the media vid, there was a flash of light which whited out the entire screen. When the picture returned, there was nothing to see. The vid changed to a media flying vehicle, which was approaching the area rapidly.
The enormous hole in the ground was more than twice as wide as the space port had been.
Ten
The planet in A001, now officially HR14, was given advanced notice of Jane's arrival. Jane sent a general message to the comnavsat in orbit, and it broadcast a wide message to every receiver on the planet, and in orbit around it.
"This is Admiral Jane. The Owls declared war on the Kingdom of Hunter's Run, and it's time to pay for stupid mistakes. My fleet will be arriving at the planet shortly."
"If you are an Owl Admiral or Captain, you can choose to avoid death by fleeing towards your original space. Flee any other direction, and my fleets wi
ll catch up with you really soon, and put you out of your misery. If you want to die now, stay where you are, I'll be there shortly."
"If you are a trader, this planet is now closed for business. Leave now. Do not take anything except personal possessions. If your ship is still on the ground when I arrive, it will be seized. If we scan your ship and discover you have a cargo bay full of drugs, purple plant, or the animal which propagates the plant, you will be destroyed immediately. If you already have a cargo of any of these, you may lift off, travel to the nearest area of purple plant cultivation, and dump the cargo overboard. You may then leave the planet."
"If you are an Owl on the ground, you will disarm yourself, and gather quietly in the space port main entrance area. Anyone found armed, or anywhere else when we arrive, will be shot on sight. Those who are smart enough to comply, will be loaded onto transports, and taken back to your own space. Those who run, will be hunted down and shot."
"If you are an addict, please gather in the main square of the town. We have a cure for you. Everyone will get it."
"If you are a slave or prisoner, you are now free. A word of warning to those who think they owned a slave or had a prisoner, we are monitoring you right now, and if you harm anyone, you will be hunted down and shot as a priority as soon as we land. You will not escape, so don’t bother trying."
"If you are a resident of the town, please be advised the town is now part of the Kingdom of Hunter's Run. Please return to your homes now, and remain inside until told it is safe to come out. Throw any weapon you have out into the street. Anyone found with a weapon is likely to be shot on sight. Kitchen knives are not considered a weapon. We have laws and you will be provided with a copy of them. You may leave with one of the ships leaving the planet if you wish. We can also provide you with transport to another world. If you decide you would like to become a Kingdom citizen, your application will be processed in due course."
"If you are not in the town or space port, stop what you're doing right now. You will immediately unload any vehicle with plant or anything else drug related on them, and use all vehicles available to travel back to the space port or town. If you do not have enough vehicles, or you need help, make a large sign which can be seen from space saying help in your language, using anything to hand, and we will get help to you as soon as we can. If you are already an addict, you can walk out the word in the plant fields if this is easiest. Or use rocks in a clear area."
"You have less than an hour. We know some of you will decide to be suicidal, so we will be coming in expecting to fight. No matter how prepared you think you are for us, you won't be. Do yourself a favour, and decide to live. See you soon. Admiral Jane out."
"How to stir up an ants nest," said Stryker, grinning.
The town and space port had immediately started swarming with beings, all moving to where they'd been told to go.
"Check out the soldier ants though," said Repulse.
There were groups of Owls moving heavy weapons off a ship.
"Traders taking you seriously," said Tranquil.
Several dozen ships had already taken off, and were heading out to the nearest plant field.
"I wonder if they know what happened at HRA1?"
"How would they?" asked Intrepid.
"Jane?" asked Yorktown.
Jane gave them a couple of eyebrow raises, and popped up a screen with the local media coverage of HRA1 on it.
"You didn’t?"
Jane nodded, grinning.
Five minutes out from the planet, Jane turned to the others, filling the Bridge's seats.
"Buckle up. Are you all ready below?"
Intrepid gave her a thumbs up.
The Hunter's Run battle fleet swept into orbit of HR14 like a gigantic swarm of bees. A dozen Battleships, and two dozen each of Super-Cruisers, standard Cruisers, Destroyers and Corvettes. With Palomino in the lead. This was just the main strike force. Dozens more Cruisers and smaller ships guarded the stations now on their way through the system. One station was on its own heading for planetary orbit, with a small task force of Cruiser and smaller ships to form the system defense force. Most of the ships were standard designs for human crews, but under Jane's personal control.
The AI's had spread out among the ships, in order to not be crowded on Palomino, although the seniors were all on her Bridge. The fleet would divide up soon enough, and ship selections had been made so the AI's primaries remained with the core fleet. Warspite's new clone was on the lead Battleship, but not yet in control of it.
The Owl fleet had formed up with their missile platform. Jane had a sense of Déjà vu for a moment.
The fleet stopped just outside the range of the Owl missiles.
"Show time," said Jane.
The Destroyers and Corvettes moved ahead, and formed up into a wall formation. The Owls moved to meet them, their missile platform moving with them.
Owl missiles started firing the moment they were in range, but Jane ignored them. The two fleets continued to close with each other until the Corvette guns were now in range.
Point defense turrets opened up, and the Owl missiles were destroyed well before they reached shields.
The guns fired, and the Owl fleet was shredded. The missile platform detonated.
Every screen down on the planet had been showing the scene in space. Ships lifted frantically, and joined the exodus heading away in the opposite direction to the approaching armada. The Corvettes went to high speed, and started after the fleeing freighters. Jane wasn’t letting any of them escape carrying drug cargo. The rest of the fleet settled into orbit. From most of the ships popped salvage droids, which started to clean up the debris field. The resulting mass would be sent on a trajectory into the system's sun.
Jane rose from the center seat, and waved Stryker into it. She and the rest headed for the access shaft. In the cargo bay, they found a sea of combat suits. Jane walked up to the lead one, and stepped in the back. The rest followed into their own. They'd debated doing this or not on the way here, since they could take control of a suit without getting inside it, but it couldn’t be denied they all wanted to experience what humans felt like inside the suits, rather than just controlling them. For Jane is was a simpler reason. She wanted to be on the scene in person, so if need be, she would interact as a person, and not a combat machine.
Palomino and a dozen dropships all headed down to the planet. The dropships had mainly combat suits being used by the other AI's, and combat droids, all in human disguises. The droids were carrying pulse rifles. The back of each combat suit also had a pulse rifle, but the stunners on the arms were raised and ready for action. If need be, they could be changed to kill instead, but initially, Jane hoped they wouldn’t need to kill at all. In spite of what she'd said in the broadcast.
Once through the atmosphere, Stryker took his first military action. He locked up all the Owl gun emplacements now ringing the space port buildings, and sent an IR missile to each. Heading away from the space port and the town were a number of vehicles. None of them were heading for a group which might need transport, so they were designated as fleeing. An IR was targeted to each, and shortly after the guns all exploded, so did the fleeing vehicles.
"Two strikes for the Stryker," he muttered to himself.
Palomino touched down outside the main entrance to the space port, front airlock pointing at the door. The main entrance was deserted. The airlock began opening.
"Owls are congregating in the admin section," said Jane. "Try not to wreck the place. The computers and other tech is junk and don’t matter, but the structure is useful. The furniture is also useful. Let's go."
Twenty combat suits leapt down, and started running inside. Fifty combat droids looking human followed them. More entered from the other side. Other dropships landed in the town, and at the larger groups out in the fields, which had not moved. There had been three help messages. Two stomped out in the plant fields, and one made in stones. All three had been in different languages.
Jane and her group moved directly towards the admin section, while the others spread out through the buildings. Sporadic gunfire indicated Owls or others who hadn't disarmed.
They slowed as they neared the main group, and finally stopped beside a blast door.
"Blast door?" said Stryker, controlling one of the suits.
"How paranoid do you have to be to build in blast doors in a ground building?" asked Repulse.
There was no answer to that, but Jane knew the Owls were just as paranoid as they were stupid and aggressive. It was a bad mix.
She drew her Pulse Rifle from off her back. The others followed. Instead of aiming at the door, she aimed at one of the top corners of the wall. The others followed her example, and with one shot each at the same time, the blast door simply fell in with a satisfying clang.
Jane continued inside, to be met with a hail of metal, which bounced off her suit. She raised both arms, and her stunners started blasting down creatures.
In less than a minute, the only movement was combat suits.
Eleven
"You have an update for us ambassador?" said Ganshura.
Walsh threw a map on the wall screen.
"How did you do that?" asked the fuzz-ball.
"Your electronic network here is crude, but I finally interfaced ours to yours, so I don’t need to use your computer directly anymore."
"Is it for sale?" asked the Mushroom, predictably.
"What part?" asked Walsh, now confused.
"Any part."
"Not yet."
"Your update?" reminded Ganshura.
"The system we have designated HRA1, which is the Fly homeworld," the name translated this time, since Darlene had run some updates, enabling them to insert their name, and have it translated into the local language name for them, "has been liberated. We loaned a fast shuttle to the new Fly ambassador, who is now on his way to ask for his seat in council to be restored. The Flies are considering joining the Kingdom of Hunter's Run as a Duchy, but we are not going to allow them to make hasty decisions on this. Better they take their seat here as a sovereign entity, and work such things out later."
A.I. Destiny 2: Queen Jane Page 5