"I hope we don’t need to do that again," added Aleesha.
"That makes no sense at all."
"It might," said Jane, and all eyes turned to her. "What if they weren’t soldiers trying to conquer the planet, but forced colonists, dumped there and told to subdue the planet or die in the attempt."
"Fuck," said BA.
I sighed. It hadn't occurred to me. Thorn or I could have kept the shield up as long as we needed, and we could have rift linked the two planets and simply walked the people through, without killing any plants at all. Just let them have the planet after everyone left. Except the where to go part still isn’t known well enough to have been safe. I'd have to hope there wouldn’t be a next time, but if there was, we needed to be better prepared.
"Our guest is about to eat. Care to join us?"
I didn't wait, but headed for the bridge mess, and settled myself at the end of the table. I motioned the seat to my left to be left empty, and butler droids began taking orders as they all sat. Hobbes, Roo, Syrinx, and Tanith joined us as well. Lacey came in last, a huge grin on his face.
"What's up chuckles?" I asked him.
"The new fighters."
"They're a joke?"
"No. Seriously bad-arse."
"You want one for yourself?"
"Not that bad-arse. Great for 617, but still not up to Gunbus or Excalibur."
Mage Celestine entered with Jeeves behind her, and I waved her to the empty chair near me, and introduced everyone. Soon we were eating, small talk going on all around, and I ate just listening to my people. The mage didn’t say much either. But she appeared to like our food and drink.
I waited until after everyone had eaten, and without anything specific to do, were lingering over their coffee. At last I rose, and walked over to the wall where there was enough room for a small parade.
"Attention to orders!" I barked.
My people jumped to their feet, and formed up in front of me. The others remained where they were, but also rose.
"Flight Lieutenant Tapping, front and center please."
Grace startled dramatically, causing more than a few stifled smiles, but she stepped forward smartly all the same.
"For outstanding fighting of Custer this morning, I'm promoting you to Lieutenant Commander. Congratulations. You'll transfer to fleet, but remain with the duties you currently have, including dropship pilot where Custer isn’t needed."
I hadn't warned Jane I was doing this, but the pulse with new insignia obviously went through immediately, as Grace's uniform changed to grey epaulettes, and the two thick bars and middle thin one between, of her new insignia.
She saluted, and I returned it. Alison caught my eye for a moment, obviously remembering as I was when she'd taught me how to salute, but I kept my face straight. Grace stepped back into her place in the formation, and I dismissed everyone. She was completely enclosed in hugs for a while. I caught Annabelle's eye, and nodded towards the door. She followed me out.
Back in my ready room, I motioned her to a chair, and we both sat.
"I need to do a run back into our space, with a forward group of Solidarios. Not sure how long I'll be gone, but I'm leaving you in charge. My Dad should be here any time now, so let him do the evac. If O'Neil falls back with a fleet on his arse, he commands the jump point defense under you. Grace can pilot BigMother in a fight if need be, and if you want an actual captain in charge, use Jack. I'm taking Gunbus, and hopefully will be back later this afternoon."
"Fine. I can oversee things, but hurry back."
I hurried out, plucked Angel off the captain's chair, collected the mage, and introduced her to the access shafts. At the bottom, she looked flushed, and I almost suggested we go again. Instead, we took a quick trolley ride into the launch area, and out and up again to where the airlock for Gunbus was.
We entered on the level above her cargo bay, through one of the droid airlocks, and I put Angel down as soon the airlock was closed again. She shot off and upward in a white blur.
Down the stairway to the cargo bay, we found a few of the mage's people standing around looking dazed among a lot of mixed cargo, collected them, and walked through the armoury. I was surprised to find a full row of combat suits, including mine, but then, Jane always anticipated my needs. It was no surprise at all to find Jeeves in the barracks common room, in which every seat was taken.
Amanda waved from the other side, and now the combat suits were explained. The rest of the team was there.
I turned for the stairs, and headed up to the bridge, followed by Celestine and the twins. Jane of course, was sitting in her normal position, with Angel already on her console pad.
I sat, waited for the others, and nodded to Jane.
Gunbus launched.
Sixty Nine
We had to wait for a long line of ships to cross through the rift.
The three giant crocodile shaped Explorer ships were first. Galactica, Enterprise, and Prometheus. Following them were Fearless, Homer, and Bonko's Club. All three were assault cruisers, Fearless being a super, Homer and Bonko' Club being ordinary, the former owned by Jack O'Neill, the latter by a mercenary called Bonko. I'd forgotten all three were docked at Haven. While we no longer had enough troops to warrant their use, they were useful for moving people, since all three could land on the surface, where the Explorers could not.
Behind them came half a dozen cruiser freighters, most of which had no life support at all, but could carry a lot of cargo between them. The next several I recognized as ore carrier cruiser freighters, and guessed Jane had brought them along to handle bulk grain, or other bulk foodstuffs. The numbers began to increase as the ships became smaller, and once again, I’d forgotten just how many small freighters, yachts, and assorted ships I'd picked up over the last couple of years. I also hadn't realized just how many of them had not gone through to Gaia with Borgcubia, and Bob must have had a hanger built into one of the titan station sections, hiding them from me when I’d arrived back after making Outback's sun go giant.
Finally after they were all through, I took Gunbus back the other way.
There were five titan class ships hanging above the jump point now. The two new ones had yet to be named, and had no crews as yet. But their power signatures showed they were using the new crystals. Jane would fight them if need be, from Susan's orders, should the jump point be attacked again. For now though, things looked quiet in the crossroad system beyond.
Realizing I hadn't checked Gunbus recently, I did a quick check of specs. Yes, a crystal was installed, and her power signature was now higher than when she'd had the crystal BigMother was now using.
"Jane?"
"The power levels?"
"Yes."
"Seems there was a drop off in power from the way we excavated that first crystal. Want me to have BigMother's changed?"
"Do that while it's quiet. Or even, see if you can get a second one to work with the existing one? BigMother is likely to be out alone more often than any other ship, so if we can get more power generated, we might survive where we otherwise wouldn’t."
"Needs more emitters for more shielding. But I'll see what Bob suggests. The bottom couple of decks are underutilized, so a bit of moving things around might enable more emitters to be installed. Might limit what we can fabricate on our own though."
"Do that."
Gunbus hit the rift through to Haven system, and as we emerged, I made another realization of having named the system without knowing it. Haven was as good a name as any for our new home system. I pinged David with the suggestion for the appropriate committee. What came back was essentially 'Dah!', so presumably it was on the list.
"Shipyard first Jane."
"Confirmed.
We docked just long enough to offload the tech people onto Bob, who'd first show them specs for the kitchen end of things, before sending them to look at our food production facilities.
Soon after, we were docked at Haven, offloaded the diplomats and adminis
tration types, and took on a few more survey people who'd missed the Lightning leaving. Jane added an extra platoon of combat droids for protection on the planet we were headed to, since we had no idea what was actually down there, beyond not having intelligent life.
Melissa's Lightning was in the next system. I sent her a ping telling her to stop, waited for the ship to do so, and put a temporary rift in place to a safe distance from her. Jane goosed Gunbus through, and the rift closed. I opened another one to where the navmap said the habitable planet was two more systems along the chain, and we emerged just outside of a normal orbit distance of the planet, with the Lightning following us through before the rift vanished again.
"Give me a minute," I said generally.
Trying something different, I closed my eyes, drew on the power of the Sceptre, and attempted to cast my 'eye' around the system, looking at everything in it. I was pleasantly surprised to find it worked, although somewhat distorted around the edges. The mind's eye seemed to be an apt name for it.
Something caught my 'eye', and I focused in on it. Only it wasn’t an it, but more of a shimmer in space. It took me a moment to remember Thorn was magically building the new station here, and putting a rift on top of it was probably not a good idea.
I opened my eyes, popped up cam feeds until I found an actual shimmer in space, and let everyone look at it.
"Terminus," I said. "Or at least will be when Thorn's magic finishes building it."
"Nice placement," said Jane. "It's on the shorter of the two routes from jump point to jump point, and inside the orbit of the planet. A fixed position with nothing gravitational coming close enough to shift it."
Looking at the navmap, I could see she was right. One of the jump points wasn’t in a normal position, making one way around the sun shorter than the other. She marked two positions. Both were also inside the orbit of the planet, but on either side of where the station was going to be.
I concentrated on the nearest position, and opened a rift back to a place near Redoubt, a few minutes away from where the existing rifts were. In effect, you'd come out of the rift from Solidario, and have either an easy left turn to Haven, or an easy right turn to Terminus station. I double checked the positioning and size before making it permanent.
Once done, I did the same for the other one back to Haven, in the position on the other side of where the station would be. Almost immediately, something appeared from Haven, which turned out to be a salvage droid pulling a large box.
"What's that?" asked Alison.
"Power station," said Jane. "The first city they build might be temporary, but at least we can give them a head start on laying power cables, so the temporary structures all have cooking, heating, and cooling as needed."
Gunbus headed in the direction of the power station, taking over the tow from the salvage droid, and extending shields around it. The Lightning in the meantime had already started on its survey work, and by the time we made it back to the planet, had already made its first orbit.
Jane had popped up screens down in the barracks mess area, and some of Celestine's people were using them. Several had scrying platters in use, and were using some sort of magic to direct what they could see.
Even so, it took several hours for Celestine to give me a place to set down the power station. The fire show of descending through an atmosphere never got old, and I could tell the mages were both exhilarated and terrified of it at the same time.
Jane set the power station down as if egg shells were involved, and took us a short way away from it, before landing. By the time we were all down on the cargo deck, the airlock was open, the ramp was down, a cool breeze was flowing in, and the mages were pressing heads to the ground.
The combat droids deployed silently, moving out in a ring to protect the group from anything which might think a quick meal was possible, or at least these strange creatures might be one, and should be sampled.
The mages were back on their feet by the time we were standing on actual ground ourselves, and formed a group behind Celestine, as she stood facing me.
"We claim this world as New Solidario, within the purview of the Kingdom of Hunter."
Her eyes locked with mine for a moment, as my frown formed.
"Or whatever governmental framework," she went on hurriedly, "our saviors decide upon. We bless this planet in the name of freedom, and ask the higher powers to grant us peace and prosperity from this time forth."
I seriously doubted the peace part was going to happen any time soon, but the groundwork for it was coming into being.
The offloading began.
Seventy
In the end, we stayed until the next morning.
The team hadn't needed to bunk in a barracks for more than a year now, but they treated it like camping out. The only difference with the past, was Annabelle and George weren't with us. It was a reminder of a much simpler time, before effectively three wars had steadily upgraded what we travelled around in. Although I had a suite on deck one, I showered with the rest of the team that evening, after our naked spa session.
By the morning, the mages had replaced very temporary overnight tents with what looked more than temporary buildings, one of which was larger than the rest, and specifically for the survey team to use. Those we'd brought with us had camped out using their own equipment, and had been joined by those on the Lightning during the night.
I had a talk with Melissa over breakfast, and she was more than happy to stay and be a shuttle service for the survey. Her Lightning was one of those with only comfortable seats, but she had her own small bedroom and fresher setup behind the cockpit, so was quite comfortable. Comfort was relative though. For me, these days, it was more like roughing it. Each to their own. But sometime I was going to have to make this up to her. And I did have a few ideas she might like.
Once back in space, we found a station where only a shimmer had been the day before. Jane headed us for it, without even bothering to ask me.
It was little more than a disc, like two plates pressed together at their rims, covered in windows. In fact, other than being a good third smaller, it was exactly like Haven, with all the space scrapers removed on both sides. Even the pattern of the windows top and bottom was the same as if the space scrapers were there. Then again, I had said leave provision for growth.
"What's wrong with this picture," asked Abigail.
The girls all looked concerned for a moment, before several giggles could be heard. All eyes turned to me, and I grinned at them. Jane did as well.
"Where do we dock?" asked Alison.
"Normally we don’t," I said. "Today we visit the only dock on it, which is for raw materials and freight handling only."
"Only dock?" asked BA.
She was giving me the 'are you mad' look.
"This station was designed for one purpose. Being a hub for diplomacy and trade. With luck, Thorn has already shifted the Redoubt based rifts here. They'll join like stepping through an airlock on the external hull, and freight will join the same way a level down. In the fullness of time, I hope we end up with the entire outer wall of the central decks being filled with rifts coming from all over the galaxy."
"Or not," said Jane. "A lot of peace making needs to happen first."
"There's that," I conceded.
It effectively killed conversation. Jane bypassed the outer rim, flying us under the station towards the center. Right in the middle, was a single airlock looking like it could take BigMother, or even Galactica. Although I was pretty sure nothing bigger than a Cruiser would ever dock here.
Gunbus docked, but the station clamps didn’t engage.
"Let me guess," I said to Jane. "The station hasn’t been turned on yet."
"Exactamundo," she replied, rising. "You want to give me a rift to the computer room?"
A screen popped up with a schematic on it, showing me exactly which door to link to. I concentrated, and joined it with my ready room door. Jane walked over, gave us a wave, an
d stepped through.
Nothing happened for a couple of minutes, and I started getting worried. But suddenly the lights came on all over the station, and two hollos popped up. One was Jane, and the other was a young lady I’d not seen before.
"Greetings," said Jane's new avatar. "I'm Janette."
There was a chorus of "Hi Janette" from around me, during which Jane walked back on board, and her hollo vanished. She took her seat, and I removed the rift. There was a faint clunk sound from below, as the station's docking clamps engaged.
"The station is aired up, but a bit cold yet. Give it a few minutes."
I pinged Thorn we were docked to the new station, and he appeared on the bridge a few moments later.
"Nice," he said, looking at the long view image Jane had up on a side screen. He looked at Jane. "The other station needs to be turned on as well. Will you do the honours after I move the rifts?"
"Certainly. Do you want an AI installed?"
"Of course. Otherwise why send you when I can do it myself?"
"Touché." She paused. "You have a specific name in mind? Will you want an actual avatar walking around?"
He went over to her, and whispered in her ear. She nodded, and they both rose, heading for the stairs. We all followed, including Angel, who I scooped up before she could go very far. While the others headed down, I went into my suite, closed the door behind me, and deposited her on her kitty castle. Jeeves came out of the kitchen with cat treats.
"Sorry Angel. I can't let you go exploring a new station. We might not ever find you again."
She didn’t look happy, but cat treats did the trick in pacifying her. I went to the door to my office, closed it after me, and exited into the passage from there, heading down after the others. By the time I was at the airlock, the ship doors were open, and they were waiting on the station ones.
We didn't need to wait long before they slid open, and the ramp slid out. At the bottom, Janette was waiting. Same height and general body shape as Jane, but a completely different face, with long brown hair half way down her back, hanging loosely. Obviously Thorn had copied this part of Haven so well, Jane's cloning facility had been duplicated as well. Or maybe, Jane had asked him to include it. It made me wonder for a moment if the delay had been so the clone body could be fabricated, rather than the temperature needing adjusting. But it was a little nippy, so maybe it was both.
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